Less than a third of Russian gas stations have fuel

Gasoline and diesel were available at just 28% of Russian gas stations tracked in the ‘GdeBenz’ app’s database as of August 16, the pro-government newspaper Izvestia reported, based on its own analysis of the service’s data.

A week earlier, ‘GdeBenz’ had put fuel availability at 41% of stations. Over that week, gasoline and diesel availability fell in the Volgograd, Chelyabinsk, Orenburg, Voronezh, Samara, Penza, Saratov, Lipetsk, and Rostov regions, as well as in Tatarstan.

Over the past week, authorities in at least eight regions of Russia reported fuel shortages and long lines at gas stations, the independent Russian investigative outlet Agentstvo reported. Media outlets and social media users also reported fuel problems in 13 regions.

Izvestia correspondents checked 21 gas stations in Moscow and the Moscow region on August 17 and found 92-octane gasoline available at seven, 95-octane at six, and 98-octane at just five. “Even diesel isn’t available everywhere,” the pro-government outlet said. A correspondent for the Russian business news outlet RBC drove around 10 gas stations in Moscow and found only two of them operating.

Russian Energy Minister Sergei Tsivilev said on August 18 that gasoline and diesel remain available at Russian gas stations, though he acknowledged that lines are forming at filling stations. The government, he said, is “actively working to solve this problem.”

Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil facilities are among the causes of the fuel crisis.

The first wave of the crisis began in late May, when fuel sale restrictions were imposed nationwide and residents were forced to stand in hours-long lines at gas stations. The restrictions began easing gradually by mid-July.

A new wave of the fuel crisis began in August, when Ukrainian drones resumed strikes on oil refineries.