Russians are searching ‘how to siphon gas’ ten times more often than three months ago

Russians have been searching for information on “how to siphon gas” at sharply rising rates, the independent Russian news outlet Verstka reports. Journalists analyzed data from Google Trends and Yandex Wordstat and found that the number of such queries has grown more than tenfold over the past three months.

In late March, Russians were searching Yandex for instructions on “how to siphon gas” roughly 4,000 times a week. Over the past week, that figure reached nearly 44,000.

Google data shows that Russian interest in the query stood at 8 to 10 points in March. Last week it climbed to 43 points, and in the current week — only just begun — interest has already hit 100 points, the maximum possible score.

Amid this, Russians have been posting on social media about strangers draining gas from their cars or from vehicles belonging to people they know. Some of these incidents have been caught on video.

A fuel crisis has begun in Russian regions following Ukrainian drone strikes on oil refineries and fuel depots.

Fuel shortages have led gas stations to impose limits on sales. In response, Russians are trying to find ways around these restrictions — for example, by filling up, driving away, siphoning the fuel into containers, and then returning to refuel again.

In many modern cars, however, siphoning fuel from the tank is difficult due to the design of the fuel system or built-in safety mechanisms.