Ukraine’s punishing bombardment of Russian oil refineries is triggering downstream shortages and outages – with motorists from western Russia to the Pacific Ocean reporting spot shortages and empty gas stations.
Cause and effect were especially evident on Tuesday in Russia’s heavily industrialized Saratov region, on the Volga River, one the most massively hit targets of Ukrainian strikes in August.
Local media in Samara, a relatively wealthy territory of about 3.3 million residents, reported severe diesel fuel shortages and pumps empty of 92- and 95-octane gasoline at most locations across the region.
The Russian fuel retail company GP Vympel, a major gasoline and diesel distributor in the Saratov district and surrounding regions, in an announcement on Monday, warned its trucks could no longer deliver product to regional customers – hundreds of local wholesalers and gas stations – because of “developments arising from unavoidable conditions.”
The “conditions” referred to Vympel in part was this: Ukrainian drones on Sunday attacked and set afire the Kuibyshev oil refinery south of Samara. Kamikaze aircraft zeroed in on cracking towers needed for distillation and reservoirs.
The Kuibyshev plant is one of Russia’s most modern. When operational, it processes about 140,000 barrels of oil daily and accounts for about 2.5% of all oil refining capacity in the Russian Federation, according to corporate statements.
Russian government officials, following the Aug. 31 attack, claimed air defenses shot down all drones and reported the plant suffered minor damage from falling debris. Samara social media, by contrast, reported multiple explosions and a massive fire.
Public access images from a European Pléiades satellite overpass recorded later in the day showed heavy fire and smoke damage to the main cracking tower, and at least two storage reservoirs destroyed by fire. The refinery is completely offline, and repairs will take weeks, weekend Russian energy industry news reports said.
In the Russian-occupied territory of Ukraine, gasoline shortages and outages also were reported, with pricing for gasoline and diesel shooting up 20% over the weekend. Most stations were simply out of fuel in Russian-controlled portions of the Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson regions. In Donetsk and Luhansk, geolocated images on Monday and Tuesday showed queues of hundreds of vehicles waiting for fuel.
Shortages also were reported on intercity highways used by Russians traveling to seaside vacations on the Black and Azov Sea coasts, local Telegram channels monitored by Kyiv Post reported.
In Russia’s Amur River Khabarovsk region – more than 6,000 kilometers (about 3,700 miles) east – as well as districts on the Pacific Ocean, motorists and local news agencies reported fuel shortages and outages over the weekend and on Monday. Car queues were spotted in the Sea of Japan port cities of Vanino and Sovetskaya Gavan.
The Ukrainian research group Spravdi reported that all of Khabarovsk Oblast, a territory of 1.2 million residents, was “completely out of gasoline.” Any fuel sold in coming months in the territory will be rationed, the report said.
Ukraine in late July kicked off a campaign visibly seeking to knock out Russian oil and gas processing capacity and keep it offline.
The Aug. 31 Samara/Kuibyshev refinery strike was a follow-up attack to a raid, likewise detonating fuel storage and damaging processing infrastructure, flown on Aug. 28-29. Video recorded by refinery workers showed Ukrainian drones flying at low level through weak small arms fire before diving in and exploding. The same night, drones struck another Samara-area plant, the Syzran oil refinery, setting it on fire as well.
In the last four days of August alone, per Ukrainian military announcements, Kyiv’s long-range kamikaze robot aircraft attacked and set afire eight Russian oil refineries: seven of them in Russia’s southern Samara (the Kuibyshev plant twice) and Krasnodar Oblasts, as well as one in the central Tula Oblast.
Ukraine’s campaign to degrade Russian oil and gas processing capacity with long-range drone strikes has hit more than 100 refining facilities since early 2024, some three or four times. Aircraft quantities and launch frequencies intensified in June-August 2025.
Western energy industry watchers Reuters and Bloomberg in late August estimated probable Russian oil processing capacity taken offline by recent Ukrainian strikes, at between 15% and 20% of all crude oil processing capacity in the Russian Federation.
An Izvestia news analysis published on Aug. 22 quoted Sergey Tereshkin, General Director of Open Oil Market analytical group, as saying major damage caused by Ukrainian drone strikes in southwest Russia, constricted further Russian fuel supply, which was already tight, because of major maintenance ongoing in fuel processing facilities in central and eastern Siberia.
The Russian state response has been to prioritize government-run businesses and major cities in western Russia, leaving far-flung regions with little fuel to buy and facing sharp price spikes, the report said.
Ukrainian energy market analyst Evgen Istrebin on X: “In the south of Russia, oil depots are empty. All fuel is sold off the wheels [from fuel trucks]. There are no reserves. Fuel has been urgently removed from Siberia, which is why the Far East has gone into deep deficit.”
According to Reuters and the late August International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates, Russia’s fossil fuel processing output fell from about 4.8 to 5 million barrels per day (bpd) in July to between 4.5 and 4.7 million bpd in August. Reuters reported total Russian refining capacity offline fell by more than half – 54% – over the month, compared to July. Although regular maintenance putting capacity offline was a factor, Ukrainian drones were largely responsible for the reduction, those reports said.
Russian overall oil processing output has shrunk gradually and moderately over the course of the Russo-Ukrainian War, with a reported 5.6 to 5.7 million bpd in March 2022 dropping to around 5.3 million bpd in March 2025 – a cumulative decline over 36 months of 12% to 15%.
Western sanctions were initially meant to punish Russia for invading Ukraine. By refusing to purchase Russian crude and processed fuels, the US and Europe expected Russia to reduce production. Yet Moscow has been successful in finding replacement customers – primarily India and China – to replace European demand, allowing processing volumes during the war to remain generally stable.
Ukrainian government and public sources at times have criticized Western attempts to pressure Russia’s energy industry, calling it overly cautious and ineffective compared to blasting a refinery with drones and setting it on fire. In many Ukrainian media outlets, however, the image of a Russian oil refinery in flames following multiple drone hits is presented as concrete evidence of the effectiveness of “Ukrainian energy sanctions.”