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Putin’s economy is running on fumes after Ukrainian attacks
Drone and ballistic missile strikes are pushing Russia to breaking point
July 2, 2026 4:00 am CET

For four years, Russian President Vladimir Putin has largely managed to shield the population from the economic consequences of his war in Ukraine. No more.

The Ukrainian missile and drone strikes on key energy infrastructure in recent weeks has turned the war from a relatively minor irritant that most Russians could ignore into an immediate and increasingly acute fuel crisis. 

Two-thirds of Russia’s 83 regions are now reporting problems with fuel supply, an immediate inconvenience to millions and an equally immediate threat to the viability of many businesses.

The situation is particularly acute in Crimea, where the authorities have declared a state of emergency and banned all fuel sales. Tourism, key to the peninsula's economy in a normal year, has collapsed.

Putin was forced to acknowledge the problem last week, summoning his top officials to Moscow to work out a fix.

In public, he puts a sanguine spin on the crisis. He told state media that “of course, these strikes on our infrastructure facilities create problems. That's obvious” but insisted that “a certain deficit” of fuel was not “critical.” He then quickly moved on to claim that Russian strikes were hurting Ukraine much more.

As far as hard numbers go, the scale of the damage is being disguised, with Russia adding domestic fuel prices to the list of economic data that it no longer publishes.

Plenty of Russians, however, are finding out for themselves just how bad things are. Social media are exploding with footage of drivers  attacking each other over gasoline at filling stations, or even rampaging in trucks through queues of cars waiting to fill up.

It’s gotten to the stage where the nation that the late Sen. John McCain derided as "a gas station masquerading as a country" isn’t even a gas station any more: Reuters reported on Wednesday that India — the biggest foreign buyer of Russian crude oil —  will now export some of what it refines back to its country of origin.