Alexander Novak

Alexander Novak is Russia's Deputy Prime Minister for the energy sector, a post he has held since November 2020 after six years as Energy Minister (2012-2020). He is Moscow's principal public voice on energy policy and its representative at OPEC+ ministerial meetings. His dual role as OPEC+ diplomat and domestic energy chief has made him the government's default messenger whenever the sector comes under strain, whether from OPEC+ quota talks or, through 2026, an escalating domestic fuel crisis.

Novak confirmed the halt of Kazakh crude transit through the northern Druzhba branch to Germany from 1 May 2026, a decision linked to Ukraine's deep-strike campaign against Druzhba pumping infrastructure. On 4 June, at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum, he made Moscow's first public admission that drone strikes were cutting Russian oil output, citing refineries under 'unscheduled repairs'. The domestic crisis deepened through June: strikes on the Kapotnya and Tyumen refineries pushed petrol rationing into at least 15 regions by 23 June, and Novak told Putin the situation was 'challenging but under control' while the government weighed a Diesel Export Ban on top of a gasoline ban already extended to 31 July.

By 28 June the crisis had outgrown Novak's usual management: Putin himself, not his deputy, publicly acknowledged 'queues at petrol stations' at a Kremlin meeting, the first time the president rather than Novak has owned the shortage. At the same SPIEF forum where he admitted the output decline, Novak also cut Russia's 2026 GDP growth forecast to 0.4% from 1.3%, tying the energy squeeze to wider fiscal strain. The Diesel Export Ban he had been weighing since late June was announced on 8 July, in a meeting chaired by Putin: a fixed decree running to 31 July that for the first time extends export restrictions to producers as well as traders, the most binding fuel measure of the crisis to date. The episode is a cross-topic signal: on european-oil-markets it anchors product-supply tightness; on Russia-Ukraine-war-2026 it shows Ukraine's deep-strike campaign achieving its economic objective faster than Moscow can contain the political fallout.