State Duma speaker Volodin warns Russian lawmakers: don’t campaign on the fuel crisis

Russia’s State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin vowed that the country would resolve “problems at gas stations” the same way it had overcome other difficulties in recent years — through unity, not panic.

“They wanted to destroy our financial system — they failed. They wanted to tear the economy to shreds — they failed. The most important thing is consolidation,” Volodin said in remarks before the State Duma, attributing each of those efforts to “the collective West.”

He urged Russians not to panic and to “see it through to the end.” “When we face challenges and start to waver and panic — that all plays into the enemy’s hands,” he said.

Volodin also warned deputies against building their election campaigns around the country’s fuel crisis, the Russian news agency Interfax reported. “Populism and demagoguery are destructive,” he said.

A fuel crisis triggered by Ukrainian strikes on oil facilities has created gasoline shortages across nearly all regions of Russia. Refineries have been forced to cut production or shut down entirely, leaving people waiting in line for hours at gas stations.

Last week, Nina Ostanina, the head of the State Duma committee on family protection, accused the government of concealing the true scale of the fuel crisis and warned that the gasoline shortage could hurt the party’s results in the State Duma elections in September.