Putin has another reason to want a ceasefire - Russia is running low on gasoline because of the Ukrainian strikes on oil refineries which have already knocked 38% offline
Russians are queuing for hours to get gasoline in some areas of Russia. That includes shortages in Crimea.
This is in the news but not explained properly in most sources.
Russia’s tanks, fighter jets, missiles and transport are useless without gasoline
Ukraine put 17% of it temporarily off line in August, which went up to 38% in September, and it likely takes days to weeks to get it back online but Ukraine keeps hitting it as they try to get it back.
75% of Russian oil refining capacity is within 1,300 km of Ukraine
Well over 90% within range of the Flamingo cruise missile once it is fully in use
This started as a section in my:
38% of oil refining capacity is now idle.
up from 17% in September.
https://militarnyi.com/en/news/drone-strikes-halt-nearly-40-of-russia-s-oil-refining-capacity/
Also before August 2025 it was relatively superficial fires that put the plant out of action but only for days to weeks. But that has now changed with the 1,150 kg (1.15 ton) of explosives Flamingo cruise missile.
Ukraine can use the Flamingo to target hardened facilities for oil refining that depend on Western components that Russia can’t supply itself.
That would put them out of action for months not weeks
virtually all except a few percent of Russian oil refinieries are within the 3000 km range of the Flamingo cruise missile.
Ukraine can’t do this quite yet but in the near future it could target these.
Then Russia would try to supply the front line from oil refineries in Eastern Russia but it can target those fuel shipments too.
Russia couldn’t continue the war without gasoline and other refined fuel for the fighter jets, missiles, tanks, trucks etc.
Also there are limits to what Russia can do by way of prioritizing the military and removing fuel from civilians.
So this is another reason for Putin to want a ceasefire soon.
Why Russia is vulnerable and Ukraine is not - Russia provides its own refined oil, Ukraine imports its refined oil
Ukraine can target all of Russia.
Russia can’t target the fuel supplies for Ukraine because it imports its oil. So it can’t solve this by military methods.
Its air defences can stop maybe 4 in 5 of the Flamingo cruise missiles, less if accompanied by decoys and drones - but that 1 in 5 would have significant impact over time.
So - there’s a fair bit of discussion about this in the West, rarely discussed in Russia, the news there attributes the shortages to other factors and claims it will be temporary and almost never mentions the attacks on Russian oil refineries and the impact of Ukrainian drones on its oil refining capacity.
However one Russian propagandist Maksim Kalashnikov has said it’s because of the oil strikes.
Russian propagandist Maksim Kalashnikov: gasoline is catastrophically scarce in several regions of Russia. The cause, he said, is the August drone strikes on oil refineries, which put a critical part of the country’s refining capacity out of operation.
Meanwhile, on the Kuril Islands, where restrictions on gasoline sales had previously been introduced, AI-92 fuel has run out. Fuel is no longer being distributed in the Sakhalin region, as the remaining gasoline is needed for special vehicles, Konstantin Istomin, head of the Kuril District, reported.
https://x.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1960292813871923562
Ukraine’s explicit aim to disrupt fuel supplies for the war
Ukraine explicitly says one of their main aims is to disrupt the supply of fuel for the Russian side of the war with the explicit aim to force Russia to stop its armed aggression against Ukraine.
QUOTE “Ukraine’s military intelligence said the Ukrainian Armed Forces are systematically implementing measures aimed at ‘reducing the combat potential of the Russian occupation forces, destabilising their logistical capabilities, particularly in terms of fuel and lubricant supplies, and forcing Russia to cease its armed aggression against Ukraine.’”
https://www.intellinews.com/ukraine-has-made-russia-s-refining-sector-a-strategic-liability-397612/
It’s a long term strategy which Ukraine has been doing more and more of, especially from late 2024 to the present and it is just starting to have noticeable effects which might soon (as in the coming months) start to affect Russia’s ability to continue the war. .
The effects are on timescales of weeks to months, not days or years.
QUOTE STARTS
The strikes are part of a deliberate effort to dismantle Russia’s refining backbone. By forcing multiple plants offline at the same time, Ukraine not only disrupts domestic fuel supplies but also strains Russia’s logistics, complicates military fuel procurement, and forces Moscow to divert resources to repairs instead of the war effort.
If facilities like Ryazan, Novokuibyshevsk, Saratov, and Afipsky remain offline through the summer, Russia could face a triple blow: disrupted supply lines to the military, rising domestic fuel prices, and a drop in export volumes. All of this would further squeeze an economy already under wartime strain.
There is also a tactical element to the timing. Russian refineries generally run near capacity to meet domestic needs and fulfill export quotas. Damaging several critical distillation units at once means supply pressure builds quickly. Even if Moscow shifts fuel from other regions, long-distance transport adds costs, causes delays, and leaves shipments vulnerable to more strikes.
...
After two major refineries reduced operations because of Ukrainian strikes, Moscow decided to increase crude exports from its western ports to nearly two million barrels a day in August — about 200,000 barrels more than earlier forecasts. The shift reflects the fact that crude that cannot be processed domestically is now being sent abroad instead.
...
Refineries supply the diesel, jet fuel, and gasoline that power Russia’s tanks, aircraft, and transport vehicles. By damaging these facilities, Ukraine directly affects the military’s operational capacity. Every refinery taken offline reduces the fuel flowing to occupied Ukrainian territory, where it powers Russian armor and aircraft.
https://www.eurasiantimes.com/header-hitting-russia-where-it-hurts-mos/
How the Flamingo can halt the Russian oil refining in the West of Ukraine
QUOTE STARTS
“Ukraine’s military intelligence said the Ukrainian Armed Forces are systematically implementing measures aimed at ‘reducing the combat potential of the Russian occupation forces, destabilising their logistical capabilities, particularly in terms of fuel and lubricant supplies, and forcing Russia to cease its armed aggression against Ukraine.’”
A series of strikes on major plants — including Ryazan, Novokuibyshevsk, Syzran, Volgograd and Afipsky — have halted production lines that are critical to primary processing, hydrocracking, and catalytic cracking. Ryazan, which accounts for 5% of Russia’s total refining capacity, has had half its operations disabled. The Novokuibyshevsk refinery, responsible for another 3%, is also impaired. Crude shipments to the Volgograd Lukoil facility, one of the largest in southern Russia, have been suspended.
“Ukraine is widely using drones with a range of 1,000–1,500km,” Nezygar reports. “These can reach the Volga region — and export terminals like Ust-Luga and Novorossiysk are also being hit.” Even the Druzhba pipeline — a key artery for Russian oil exports to central Europe — has reportedly been targeted.
The choice of refineries as targets is no accident. “Modern Russian refineries were built using equipment from Shell, Axens, UOP, and Haldor Topsoe,” Nezygar observes. These include complex hydrocracking and reforming units needed for Euro-5 fuel production. With sanctions in place since 2022, Russia can no longer access Western equipment, software, or catalysts — critical consumables that must be replaced every one to three years. Chinese substitutes exist but are less efficient, and the technology gap means entire process lines must be redesigned to accommodate them.
“Every Ukrainian strike on a hydrocracking or reforming unit leads to months of downtime,” the channel warns.
There is also a growing geographic imbalance. “The map of Russian refineries reveals a key strategic problem,” Nezygar explains. “Main processing capacities are concentrated in the European part of the country, while fuel consumption is rising in the Far East.” Fuel must now be shipped thousands of kilometres to reach eastern regions like Primorye, increasing both costs and vulnerability.
With large refineries such as Kirishi and Volgograd now within reach of Ukrainian drones, the threat is expanding. Russia’s refineries were all hard covered in the Cold War to protect them from possible attack and until recently, Ukraine’s drones were too small to do much damage beyond cause a superficial fire. That has changed dramatically recently as clearly more powerful drones have been developed and Ukraine is now introducing even more powerful home-made cruise missiles that are capable of destroying a refinery. If the new Flamingo cruise missile’s reported range of 3,000km proves accurate, even Russia’s largest refinery in Omsk may no longer be secure. “As the range increases, facilities previously considered out of reach are now threatened,” Nezygar writes. “Protecting all refineries across the territory, from Kaliningrad to the Far East, is practically impossible.”
The conclusion is stark: “Russia’s oil and gas industry, once a source of economic strength, has become a vulnerable spot.”
https://www.intellinews.com/ukraine-has-made-russia-s-refining-sector-a-strategic-liability-397612/
S & P’s 4.8 million barrels per day within 1,300 km is 75% of Russian’ oil refining capacity of 6.4 million barrels per day
That same source shares a map showing that 4.8 million barrels per day of oil refining capacity is within 1,300 km of the Ukrainian front line.
https://www.intellinews.com/ukraine-has-made-russia-s-refining-sector-a-strategic-liability-397612/
That’s out of 6.4 million barrels of oil per day refining capacity so that means 75% is within range.
I don’t think I can include that map here. But this shows most of the oil refineries with Google Maps.
Done with Google Maps which for some reason leaves out the Omsk oil refinery.
Virtually all except a few percent within range of Flamingo
There are a few in the far east such as Khabarovsk oil refinery. 86,000 bbl/d so it’s about 1.3 % capacity compared with the 6.4 million b/d total.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oil_refineries#Russia
The Omsk refinery is here it’s also within range of the Flamingo:
Google labels it as an oil refinery but for some reason leaves it out of its map of all oil refineries for Russia.