Drivers in Moscow and the Moscow region report that AI-95 gasoline has disappeared from many filling stations, with long queues forming at Rosneft and Gazprom outlets. Witnesses told Ekho that the fuel, priced at 71–74 rubles per liter at these chains, was also scarce at networks like Neftemagistral and Teboil, where it usually costs 85–95 rubles. One driver said that on the way to his dacha, he found AI-95 at only one station, where a "wild queue" had formed.
A Moscow resident who visited several stations in the city could only find fuel at 120 rubles per liter. A man driving along the Yaroslavl Highway said only about half of the stations along the route were working, with queues "spilling onto the road." In the Vladimir region, large chains receive deliveries but do not always have fuel, a source told Ekho. Smaller networks almost always have fuel, but at noticeably higher prices.
Actress and propagandist Yana Poplavskaya wrote on Telegram about the AI-95 shortage and queues at Rosneft and Gazprom stations. "Unfortunately, stability did not last long. Hope that the problems are really short-term. Autumn is near," she noted (spelling and punctuation preserved).
The fuel problems are not limited to the capital region. According to The Moscow Times, after a new series of Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian refineries, shortages are observed in at least 18 regions, including Kaluga, Saratov, Ryazan, Lipetsk, and Voronezh oblasts, Bashkortostan, as well as Primorsky, Krasnodar, and Krasnoyarsk krais. In Voronezh, queues formed at two stations with AI-95, in Kaluga Oblast there are complaints about a shortage of AI-92, and in the town of Bodaibo, AI-95 has been unavailable since early August.
In July, Russian oil refining fell to 3.6 million barrels per day, the lowest level since 2002, according to EA Analytics. A source on the fuel market told Kommersant that refineries are unlikely to return to previous production volumes by the end of the year.
Economist Andrei Makhovsky said in an interview with Current Time that the gasoline situation depends entirely on strikes by the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and that Russian authorities have no radical solution. According to him, imports, including record deliveries from Belarus (212,000 tons of gasoline in July), are "not the volumes that can help the Russian market." He also noted that the shortage could be more acute, but Russians are driving and refueling less, partly due to the downgrade of gasoline production standards from Euro-5 to Euro-2: drivers fear putting low-quality fuel into their tanks.