At least 15 Russian regions had imposed petrol sales restrictions by 23 June, as Ukrainian strikes on the Kapotnya and Tyumen refineries deepened a domestic fuel shortage1. Deputy PM Alexander Novak told Vladimir Putin the same day the situation was "challenging but under control" while the government weighed a diesel export ban2. Queues once confined to occupied Crimea had by then reached Irkutsk, Novosibirsk and Voronezh.
Novak is Russia's deputy prime minister for energy, and his phrasing is the tell. A government that had the shortage in hand would not be floating a diesel export ban, a measure that sacrifices hard-currency earnings to keep fuel at home. The Kapotnya shutdown drained Moscow-region supply, but the spread to Siberian cities thousands of miles from any struck plant points to a distribution system under strain, not a single outage.
In May, oil revenue surged 32.4% even as Novak cut the 2026 growth forecast to 0.4%; a month on, the same minister is rationing forecourts and eyeing export curbs. The cost has moved from the balance sheet to the petrol station, which is a harder place for the Kremlin to hide it.
