Putin acknowledges fuel shortages amid Ukrainian refinery strikes

Russian President Vladimir Putin has publicly acknowledged fuel shortages and queues at gas stations, attributing the issues to Ukrainian drone strikes on energy infrastructure. In a rare admission, Putin stated that Russia is experiencing a "certain shortage" of fuel, though he described it as "not critical." He vowed to increase production of air defenses to protect Russian energy facilities and to speed up repairs to refineries that have been hit.

Ukraine has intensified its drone attacks on Russian energy infrastructure, recently igniting a fire at a major oil refinery in the southern Krasnodar region. The attack on the Sloviansk refinery, which processes close to 4 million tons of crude annually, killed one person and wounded another. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy claimed responsibility for the strike, stating that such attacks reduce the resources fueling the Russian war machine. Another Russian refinery in the Yaroslavl region, approximately 700 kilometers from the Ukrainian border, was also reportedly targeted.

Putin described the Ukrainian attacks as an attempt to create a split in Russian society and force Russia to halt its military advance, but asserted they have no effect on the front lines. He also revealed that Ukraine had proposed a mutual halt on deep strikes behind enemy lines, which he dismissed as a strategic maneuver by Kyiv to buy time to regroup and rearm. The Kremlin reiterated that Russia's plans remain unchanged to force Ukrainian forces to leave four eastern provinces that Moscow claims as its own.