Russia's harvest is running out of the diesel its own war burned up: Ukrainian strikes on oil refineries and depots have left combines idle just as the grain ripens, The Moscow Times reported. The shortage runs from the southern grain belt to Siberia, and the harvest window is days wide. The country that invaded its neighbor can no longer fuel its own fields.

A fifth of Russia's grain, no diesel to cut it

The pain first lands in Rostov Oblast and Krasnodar and Stavropol krais, which grow a fifth of Russia's grain, Forbes reported. Stations in Krasnodar Krai cap sales at 100–200 liters per person — a combine burns up to 300 in one shift. Diesel surfaces in the region only along the M4 highway, where people camp at gas stations overnight, hoping a tanker truck shows up. 

"Many don't risk going out to harvest without confidence that fuel will be delivered to the field," a local farmer said. In Rostov Oblast, which normally gathers about 10 million tons of grain, farmers put possible losses at up to 15%.

Idle combines, busy bureaucrats

In occupied Crimea — the epicenter of the fuel collapse — harvest machinery "simply stands motionless," a representative of an organization working on the peninsula said. In the Sakha Republic, a vast region in eastern Siberia, the 200-liter purchase cap barely covers a day of work after a 200–300 km drive to the pump. Small and mid-sized farms hold diesel for about 14 days of field work and buy the rest at inflated spot prices.

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Moscow's response so far is paperwork. 

"Officials just keep compiling an endless number of tables with charts of fuel needs and capacities, and that's it," an agricultural worker in Sverdlovsk Oblast complained. "Everyone understands that if the harvest isn't brought in, it will be a nightmare. But nobody understands how exactly to help."

The clock does not care: grain must be harvested within roughly a week to 10 days of ripening or it starts shedding, said Andrei Sizov of the SovEcon analytical center. By 1 July, Russia had threshed 1.3–1.5 million hectares — a third of last year's pace, mostly due to weather so far. SovEcon still forecasts 88.9 million tons of wheat, down 2.5%.

Why the diesel is gone

The shortage traces straight to Ukraine's deep-strike campaign: over the past two months, drones reached all of Russia's top-10 refineries, collapsing diesel production and dragging refining down to lows unseen since the early 2000s. The strikes have not paused — Russian fuel tanks burned from the Azov coast to the Moscow region just overnight, and the campaign has already put fuel rationing on the streets of most Russian regions.

US president veers from praising the alliance to threatening Iran and confusing world leaders’ names

Having arrived at Nato’s annual summit under a familiar cloud of resentment and grievance, Donald Trump’s farewell message on Wednesday was an unlikely tale of love and darkness.

Addressing journalists in the presence of his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the US president surprised everyone by directing his affections at an alliance he spent much of the previous day spewing bile over, citing the now well-worn gripe about Greenland, among others.

Licence would be diplomatic coup for Kyiv but process of making munitions would likely be expensive, complex and long

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Donald Trump has told Volodymyr Zelenskyy that Ukraine may be allowed to manufacture Patriot missile interceptors to counter Russian ballistic attacks. It would be a diplomatic coup for Kyiv, which has been struggling to counter Moscow’s increasing missile threat.

The US president’s commitment, however, was vaguely framed, and he admitted he had not spoken to the US defence and aerospace companies Lockheed Martin and RTX Corporation (formerly Raytheon) that produce the Patriot system. It also remained unclear how quickly manufacturing of the expensive and complex munitions could be stepped up.

Japan has said its ban on jet fuel exports to Russia applies not only to direct shipments but also to cargoes routed through third countries or transferred between ships at sea.

The statement came after Reuters reported that Russia was preparing to import a jet fuel shipment originating from Japan through a network of traders, as Moscow faces fuel shortages following Ukrainian strikes on Russian energy infrastructure.

Tokyo moves to block sanctions evasion

Japanese Trade Minister Ryosei Akazawa said on 7 July that jet fuel is among the goods covered by Japan’s export restrictions against Russia, Reuters reported.

"Exports to Russia through third countries, including ship-to-ship transfers at sea, are also covered," Akazawa said, while declining to comment on specific cases.

Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry is working to prevent sanctions evasion by raising awareness among companies, issuing warnings, and sharing information with authorities in Japan and abroad, he said.

Russia sought fuel through intermediaries

Reuters reported on 3 July that Russia was expected to receive jet fuel cargo originating from Japan through intermediaries as the country dealt with fuel shortages caused by Ukrainian attacks on oil refineries and fuel depots.

According to sources familiar with the matter cited by Reuters, the shipment involved at least 200,000 barrels of jet fuel expected to load from Chiba, Japan, before being transported to South Korea and potentially transferred to another tanker near Yeosu before continuing toward Russia.

The sources said the cargo’s final destination was unclear, but the arrangement appeared designed to route the fuel through multiple jurisdictions.

Japan’s latest statement indicates that such transfers would still fall under its export restrictions.

Russian fuel crisis deepens

The reported shipment comes as Ukrainian drone strikes have increasingly targeted Russian energy infrastructure, including oil refineries and fuel storage facilities.

The attacks have disrupted fuel supplies across Russia, prompting Moscow to impose restrictions on fuel purchases as shortages affect transportation, industry, and other sectors of the economy.

Russian jet fuel exports have also declined, according to shipping data cited by Reuters. Russia exported around 13,000 barrels per day of jet fuel this year, compared with approximately 30,000 barrels per day last year.

Japan, alongside other G7 partners, has maintained sanctions and export controls aimed at limiting Russia’s ability to sustain its war against Ukraine. Akazawa said Tokyo would continue enforcing strict controls in coordination with international partners.

Ukraine’s drone campaign has forced Russia to start rationing its own gasoline, and the squeeze has split the country in two. Where the drones reach the refineries, regions ration what fuel remains; where they cannot, officials stockpile in anticipation of a shortage that has not yet arrived. On 6 and 7 July, both ends of the country showed it at once.

In Nizhny Novgorod—the Volga region that hosts NORSI, Lukoil’s largest refinery—the regional operational headquarters moved to hand out gasoline by appointment, Governor Gleb Nikitin said on Telegram.

It approved a QR-code pilot for filling stations, kept a 40-liter cap already taking effect at Lukoil stations, and floated selling fuel on alternating days by the first digit of the license plate—plates starting with an even number one day, odd the next—announcing the measures in the same breath as reassurance that deliveries had “normalized” and risen 29 percent since the end of the previous week.

Rationing spreads past 60 regions

The machinery is borrowed. Occupied Sevastopol began issuing weekly personal QR codes for 20 liters at a time in June, its Kremlin-installed governor, Mikhail Razvozhayev, said on Telegram. Oryol was the first region to float plate-number sales, up to 50 liters, its Governor Andrey Klychkov said in a VKontakte broadcast reported by Meduza.

NORSI went offline in early July after a drone strike, and mandatory or ad hoc fuel limits now apply to two-thirds of Russia’s regions, the Moscow Times counted. Putin has conceded the strikes are causing problems, acknowledging “a certain shortage” of fuel in a Kremlin-published interview, The Insider reported.

On Russia’s border with Finland, the wait itself became the story. In Petrozavodsk, the Karelian capital, photographer Igor Podgorny queued five hours overnight for 30 liters of gasoline—the wait alone, he noted, was enough to have driven to St. Petersburg, Stolitsa na Onego reported. Lukoil stations across the city had run dry; only one small chain was still filling canisters, and not always.

Nine time zones and 6,300 kilometers east, on the Pacific, Kamchatka has lost no refinery and lies far beyond drone range—yet it is preparing anyway, local outlet Kam24 reported. Officials there logged a 30-day fuel reserve on 7 July and said two towns that had run short the week before had been stabilized.

A tanker was steaming toward Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky with about 1,000 tons of AI-92 gasoline and 2,000 tons of diesel, a second vessel loading behind it. Jet fuel is secured until 13 August. Independent stations are already raising prices; the region’s main supplier is holding steady, and the governor ordered regulators to keep it that way.

Between the frontiers, drivers wait hours in line; black-market gasoline in Irkutsk climbed toward 350 rubles ($4.53) a liter at the peak of that region’s shortage. For most of the war, the roughly one in five Russians tied to military pay or war production stayed insulated while everyone else absorbed inflation and service cuts—fuel does not sort that way.

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Fuel crisis reaches the fields

The strain reaches the fields, too, as PLN Pskov reported. In Pskov Oblast, on the Estonian and Latvian border, growers have lost working hours to fuel queues in the middle of harvest, with diesel near 80 rubles ($1.03) a liter and summer sales to visitors down by around half. Panic-buying has driven demand up 20–30%, Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak has said.

A country that sells oil to the world is now administering its own gasoline—by QR code and by license plate. In Nizhny Novgorod, the machinery went up the same day its governor said the shortage was easing.

Russia's largest employment platform has posted vacancies for drone operators to help defend Moscow from Ukrainian aerial attacks, Reuters reported on 3 July.

The recruitment drive comes as Ukraine has stepped up long-range drone attacks on Moscow in recent months, increasingly targeting military, industrial, and energy facilities as part of a broader campaign to disrupt Russia's ability to sustain its war against Ukraine.

According to Reuters, the positions were advertised on HeadHunter, Russia's largest job recruitment website, on behalf of a volunteer unit known as the Combat Army Reserve Force.

The job advertisement says recruits will help "ensure the capital's security using modern technical solutions and surveillance systems."

Volunteer unit seeks new drone operators

According to the listing, successful applicants would prepare and operate drones, conduct reconnaissance missions, and carry out day and night flights to collect data.

Reuters reported that applicants need only basic technical skills and a willingness to learn, with no previous experience required.

The position offers a starting salary of 150,000 rubles (about $1,950 USD) per month, below Moscow's reported average monthly salary of more than 200,000 rubles.

Reuters said it could not determine when the vacancy was first posted, although it was updated on 1 July.

Ukraine steps up long-range drone campaign

The recruitment comes as Ukraine has significantly expanded its long-range drone campaign against military and industrial targets inside Russia.

In recent months, Ukrainian forces have repeatedly targeted airbases, ammunition depots, fuel storage facilities, military logistics hubs, and defense industry sites, while also increasing attacks on Moscow and the surrounding region.

In June, Ukrainian drones struck Moscow multiple times, including two attacks within three days on a major oil refinery located inside the city's ring road, according to Reuters. Russia has also reported frequent attempts by Ukrainian drones to reach the capital, prompting temporary airport closures and flight disruptions.

Kyiv says its long-range strike campaign is intended to degrade Russia's military logistics, disrupt fuel supplies and industrial production, and complicate the movement of military equipment supporting Moscow's war against Ukraine.

The Kremlin has acknowledged the growing threat, saying it is taking additional measures to strengthen Moscow's air defenses, Reuters reported.

Russia's new Banderol cruise missile is fast, cheap to make, and dangerous to Ukrainian cities. The S8000 "Banderol" is a hybrid of a kamikaze drone and a cruise missile, massively used in the last, the most massive attack on Kyiv.

According to the Ukrainian Defense Intelligence, the missile is designed by the sanctioned Russian company Kronshtadt. It flies at 520-560 km/h cruise speed and up to 650 km/h maximum, has a range up to 500 km, and carries a 114.3-kg fragmentation-high-explosive warhead.

Ukraine's War & Sanctions portal documented over 20 foreign-made components and approximately 20 microchips of foreign origin from 30 different companies in the missile's construction, with a Chinese Swiwin SW800Pro jet engine, available on AliExpress for approximately $16,000, powering the weapon.

Threat profile: jet engine that outruns machine guns

The Banderol was first documented at Russia's Kapustin Yar test site in late 2024 and has since been integrated into Russia's large combined missile-and-drone attacks, according to Defense Express. 

Russian forces used Banderol munitions in the 24 May 2026 attack that included Oreshnik use, the 2 June 2026 record 729-weapon strike that killed 17, and Kyivans reported hearing jet aircraft sounds during the 2 July 2026 attack that killed 30 people and drove a record 52,500 people into Kyiv metro shelters.

The concept is derivative, closer to Ukrainian rocket-drones like Palianytsia and Peklo or the American AGM-158C LRASM than to classical Russian cruise missiles, but smaller in dimensions and warhead than the standard Russian arsenal.

Ukrainian defense expert Serhii "Flash" Beskrestnov reported in April 2025 that the Banderol's jet propulsion allows speeds that Ukrainian mobile fire teams cannot match with standard ground-based machine guns. Countering the missile requires systems like the Gepard that can track fast-moving targets. 

Foreign supply chain feeding sanctioned Russian producer

Most of Banderol's components are supplied through the Russian "Chip and Dip" distribution network. 

Electronics and power components include Japanese Murata batteries, South Korean Dynamixel MX-64AR servos manufactured by Robotis, American voltage regulators and generators, and Swiss microcontrollers.

Russia evades sanctions on electronic components by using complex networks of shell companies and intermediary firms, routing imports through Armenia, Kazakhstan, China, Türkiye, and the UAE, per that earlier reporting.

Kronshtadt, the missile's producer, was reported to be facing imminent bankruptcy in August 2025, with 40 lawsuits totaling $7.76 million filed against the company over three months and unclear paths to restructuring. 

On 16 June, the Saratov regional assembly’s industry committee raised the possibility of convening a session on the fuel shortage. Stanislav Denisenko, a deputy of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDNR), argued against it.

The problem, he said, was being artificially inflated by “hostile YouTube channels.” He had personally checked the filling stations. There was no shortage. His proposed solution was to block VPN access so that Russians could not reach the channels spreading panic.

Denis Bulanov, a Communist Party of the Russian Federation (KPRF) deputy, replied that the Kommersant article documenting the national fuel crisis was available without a VPN.

Two weeks later, Olga Alimova, a KPRF deputy in Russia’s State Duma, told a Saratov party meeting that residents were tired of having their real problems “either silenced or replaced with formal reports.”

On 30 June, by which point more than 55 of Russia’s regions were reporting fuel supply problems or government-imposed restrictions, according to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Siberia.Realities—the Samara regional assembly voted on whether to put the crisis on its agenda. Deputy Maxim Fedorov had proposed the discussion. The vote was 14 in favor, 19 against, and one abstaining.

Assembly speaker Gennady Kotelnikov explained that the government was already handling it, that committees had discussed it, and that “the situation has stabilized, but problems remain.” The region had been under a rationing order for six days: 40 liters of gasoline per car, 100 liters of diesel. Sales into canisters were suspended.

Manual mode

For most of the past four years, Vladimir Putin largely managed to shield the population from the immediate economic consequences of the war, Politico wrote on 2 July.

About 20% of Russians have income tied to military service or war production, Euromaidan Press has reported—wages in that sector have risen while the rest of the population absorbed inflation and cuts to civilian services. The fuel crisis is different—it is immediate and personal for civilians with no connection to the front.

In Irkutsk Oblast, governor Igor Kobzev published a post on Telegram explaining the problems but not the cause, merely stating that there are disruptions across the country and that his region had shifted to “manual mode,” determining fuel volumes for each recipient individually. Siberia.Realities reported that the original post contained a reference to the Ukrainian drone strikes, which was later removed.

What followed in Kobzev’s public communications was logistical: 6,000 tons of fuel from refineries across the country were moving to the region under existing contracts, to be distributed across more than 20 districts with few or no Rosneft filling stations.

He declared a state of heightened readiness on 28 June, called on residents and organizations to reduce driving, and flew to Moscow to brief Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak. He returned without saying how the crisis would end. “Honestly,” he wrote on 1 July, “despite all the measures taken, the situation with fuel in the region continues to be very difficult.”

Siberia.Realities reported that in late June, an ambulance leaving Baykalsk—a town of 13,000 without a maternity ward, 150 kilometers from Irkutsk—needed a pickup truck carrying a fuel drum to follow it, because the stations on the route had run dry. The baby was born on the highway.

In Pskov Oblast, Mikhail Vedernikov sent his own staff to verify whether the stations actually had fuel, then publicly reported what they found. The worst single-day queue documented by his team: nearly 100 cars backed up simultaneously in the Kuninsky district in the far south-east of the oblast.

Vedernikov negotiated a dispensation for holders of boat registration documents to fill jerry cans and announced that, from the following day, residents could purchase five liters in certified containers for household use—a regional emergency staff decision binding on all stations.

Irkutsk activist and Yabloko party member Pavel Kharitonenko posted on Telegram that Kobzev’s emergency flight to Moscow pointed at the structural problem: Irkutsk Oblast sits on oil fields and hosts the Angarsk Petrochemical Company (ANKHK), one of the country’s largest refining facilities, which should supply the region’s needs and send the surplus elsewhere. Instead, Rosneft—the refining monopolist in the oblast—supplies fuel only through its own station network, squeezing independent operators out of the market.

“Why can’t the governor sort this out?” Kharitonenko asked. “It’s very simple: he was installed here by Moscow in uncontested elections and works for Moscow bosses, not for the residents of the region.”

Russian economist Sergei Aleksashenko, quoted by Siberia.Realities, stated: “We must understand and accept that the main cause of what is happening is the war. As long as the war continues, Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian refineries will only intensify.”

30 liters, if you’re lucky

A reporter from the Samarska Gazeta joined the queues over the weekend of 28–29 June. At a Rosneft filling station, the limit was 30 liters per fill. The AI-95 grade was unavailable; the reporter took AI-92 instead. Two nearby Tatneft stations had their nozzles marked as broken.

When the pump moved to the next driver in line, it ran dry. “Another thing we noticed,” the paper wrote, “fewer cars on the roads. This may be connected to the vacation season, or to drivers deciding to wait out the hard times.”

In the week of 23–29 June, Samarastat recorded a 10% rise in AI-92 prices, to 73.68 rubles ($0.95) per liter, and an 8.74% rise in AI-95, to 78.50 rubles ($1.02). At smaller independent chains—Olvi, Roza Mira, Irbis—the T-Bank price-tracking app showed AI-92 at 112 rubles ($1.45) and AI-95 at 116 rubles ($1.50) per liter.

Governor Vyacheslav Fedorischev said on 29 June that rationing could be lifted early if the situation stabilized. The regional Ministry of Industry advised residents who considered the prices unreasonable to contact the Federal Antimonopoly Service. The Antimonopoly Service said companies set prices based on market conditions.

Into the kindergartens

In occupied Sevastopol, governor Mikhail Razvozhaev told a 30 June government session that the city had reduced the number of working kindergartens from 74 to 24. The cause was not budget pressure. It was fuel and electricity constraints. The remaining 50 could not be kept running.

Food prices on the peninsula have roughly doubled at some stores, with goods being repriced at the checkout counter every few hours as supply chains fail to keep pace, according to Ukrainian media monitoring Crimean social media.

Ukraine’s Center for National Resistance documented shortages of sugar, flour, cereals, salt, and pasta in stores across Crimea as early as 8 June, with some retail chains introducing purchase limits per person.

Gasoline at official filling stations—when available—has passed 200 rubles ($2.59) per liter in Sevastopol. The fuel station chain TES dispenses 20-liter allocations by QR code—obtaining one, the outlet noted, is “an internet lottery with minimal winners.” Resellers charge 400 rubles ($5.17) or more.

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The market the state left behind

In Irkutsk, a black market for fuel opened at 150 rubles ($1.94) per liter at the start of the shortage and reached 350 rubles ($4.53) by the end of it, according to Ukraine’s Foreign Intelligence Service.

In Sevastopol, two residents lost nearly 90,000 rubles ($1,164) in one day to scammers offering fuel without a queue: a 33-year-old woman transferred 5,500 rubles ($71) to a supplier who vanished after receiving payment; a 32-year-old man lost 83,000 rubles ($1,074) in the same scheme.

In the Penza region, Sberbank’s deputy chairman warned businesses of fraudulent commercial offers impersonating major oil company suppliers; the bank said it had already prevented 18 million rubles ($233,000) in corporate losses.

Into the loan book

The fuel shortage has reached Russia’s corporate loan book. Sberbank CEO German Gref told Russia’s Financial Congress that his credit committee had become “a committee on problem assets” as more companies sought debt restructuring.

The Bank of Russia’s April data put problem corporate loans—including risky restructurings—at 11.2 trillion rubles ($145 billion), or 11.6% of the entire corporate portfolio, with the oil and gas sector among the hardest hit.

Gref linked the mounting pressure directly to the war. Central Bank of Russia (CBR) governor Elvira Nabiullina described the fuel situation as “of course, concerning” but “temporary,” saying the CBR would watch for secondary inflationary effects—rising fuel prices causing people to expect broader price increases across the economy—before deciding on further rate moves.

At its 19 June meeting, the CBR cut its key rate by only 25 basis points to 14.25%, half the reduction markets had expected, citing pro-inflationary risks from the fuel market.

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Ukraine carried out at least 30 strikes on Russian oil assets in May alone—16 of them on fuel-producing facilities, hitting eight of Russia's 10 biggest refineries—the highest monthly toll since the full-scale invasion began. The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense said 11 refineries were struck in June.

Before the June strikes, Energy Intelligence estimated that around one-third of Russia’s refining capacity had been knocked out. Repairing the damaged equipment is complicated by Western technology sanctions: Ukraine has targeted specialized imported components, and sourcing replacements around the restrictions has made repairs slow and expensive, Euronews reported.

On 2 July, Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin signed a decree permitting the sale of lower-grade Euro-3 gasoline—with sulfur content up to 150 mg per kilogram, against the previous Euro-5 standard—through the end of 2026. The government described it as a “preventive measure to prevent destabilization of the domestic motor fuel market.”

Ukraine’s Foreign Intelligence Service has reported widespread accounts of engine damage in newer turbocharged cars, particularly Chinese models, from lower-grade fuel already in circulation.

Italy has joined Bulgaria in objecting to a proposed EU visa ban on Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church and a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to three EU diplomats, Politico reported.

The visa ban, proposed by EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas as part of the bloc's 21st sanctions package against Russia, needs the backing of all 27 member states to pass. Bulgaria's opposition was already on the record; Italy's "reservation"—diplomatic language for a concern short of a veto—makes Rome the second capital standing between the EU and the cleric who has repeatedly praised and justified Moscow's full-scale invasion. Rome's unease, one diplomat said, stems from the Vatican and its discomfort at sanctioning the leader of a Christian denomination.

A patriarch long shielded from EU sanctions

The 21st package, unveiled on 9 June, targets Russia's military-industrial and financial sectors. Kirill was kept off earlier sanctions lists for years by Hungary, whose veto fell away after Viktor Orban lost power to Peter Magyar in April; Brussels added the patriarch's name once that block lifted. Under Kirill, the Russian Orthodox Church has framed the war as a holy one and moved to purge clergy who refuse to bless it.

The oil price cap and the combatants ban

The Kirill objection is not the only friction inside the package. EU diplomats are also discussing a proposal to freeze the price cap on Russian oil, set at $44 per barrel—delaying a mid-July review that would otherwise raise the cap automatically. Greece, Malta and Cyprus, all with sizable shipping sectors that service Russian vessels, have objected to the delay. The same three previously stalled a proposed ban on providing maritime services to Russian ships.

A separate measure, barring former Russian combatants from entering the EU, has drawn concerns from France and Italy.

Why the holdouts matter now

The horse-trading comes as the sanctions regime and Ukraine's long-range strikes on Russian refineries squeeze Moscow together: two-thirds of Russia's 83 regions are now reporting fuel-supply problems. Ukraine's drone campaign has idled a large share of Russian refining capacity, pushing rationing across dozens of regions and forcing Moscow to import gasoline by sea. Because the EU requires unanimity, a single reservation from Rome or Sofia can hold the whole package—energy measures included—until it is resolved.

Russia's border city of Belgorod lost electricity and water across several districts early on 3 July after a Ukrainian strike hit a city energy facility, in what Ukrainian military sources described as a missile strike on a substation at a combined heat and power plant. A woman was killed in her car and five vehicles were damaged, Belgorod officials said.

The strike landed a day after Russia's deadliest assault on Kyiv this year — a missile-and-drone barrage that killed at least 30 people and put the capital under a day of mourning on 3 July. It fits the blackout-for-blackout logic Ukraine has followed since autumn: for every strike on Ukraine's grid, one on Russia's. Belgorod has been among the most repeatedly hit, and Moscow, in turn, framed its own Kyiv attack as retaliation for Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries.

What was hit

Open-source analysts identified the target as the Michurinskaya gas-turbine plant, with the strike falling on its 110-kilovolt station substation. The plant supplies power to Belenergomash-BZEM, a large industrial enterprise producing pipes and metal structures for Russian industry, the Ukrainian outlet RBC-Ukraine reported. Belgorod regional authorities confirmed an attack on the region and a fire at an infrastructure object, with emergency crews sent to the site.

A city in the dark, again

Power and water went down in southern and central parts of the city of more than 320,000, alongside problems with cellular service and internet, local channels and the mayor said. The city has been through this repeatedly: Ukrainian forces struck its power plants and substations through the autumn and winter, and in January the regional governor reported 600,000 residents temporarily left without electricity, heat, and water. EP has tracked the recurring hits on the city's grid.

The wider campaign

The Belgorod strike sits inside a broader Ukrainian push against Russian and occupied energy and fuel infrastructure. In the 48 hours before it, Ukrainian drones hit power substations across occupied Crimea and struck a refinery in Russia's Nizhny Novgorod Oblast. The campaign against Russian refineries has driven a domestic fuel crisis and forced Russia to import gasoline. Ukraine has cast the grid strikes as a proportional answer to Russia's years of attacks on Ukrainian energy — the same reciprocity Moscow invoked, in reverse, to explain the Kyiv barrage.

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Two of Russia's most senior economic figures publicly linked the country's mounting economic pressures to the war in Ukraine last week — an unusual departure from the official silence that has surrounded Kremlin war costs since 2022. German Gref, chief executive of Sberbank, and central bank governor Elvira Nabiullina both spoke in separate settings as Ukraine's drone strike campaign against Russian oil infrastructure compounds the fiscal strain from record military spending.

Russia's military and classified spending reached 46% of all budget expenditure in the first quarter of 2026 — a surge of roughly 30% over the same period in 2025 — while the National Wealth Fund buffer has fallen from about 7% of GDP before the war to 1.7% as of April 2026, Russia's Finance Ministry confirmed.

What each of them said

Gref told Sberbank's annual shareholders meeting that investments had already fallen over 14% and could drop a further 3% this year. He then addressed the war directly.

"I don't believe there is anyone in this country whose primary concern is anything other than an end to military hostilities as soon as possible," Gref said.

For the chief executive of Russia's largest state-controlled bank to frame the war as the country's overriding problem — not "the special military operation," not a security challenge to be managed — marks a notable break from the language Kremlin officials have enforced since February 2022.

Nabiullina's public position is more constrained, but the Bank of Russia's own press release on her June rate decision said fiscal policy had become more accommodative than previously expected and that pro-inflationary risks had worsened — the same dynamic that Kluge's analysis traces directly to the gap between military outlays and tax revenues.

The fiscal picture behind the exchange

The 46% military spending figure comes from analyst Janis Kluge of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, drawn from Finance Ministry data and cited by ISW. Russia is now covering an increasing share of the deficit through borrowing, with liquid National Wealth Fund assets depleted to a fraction of their pre-war level and no longer functioning as a meaningful cushion.

Ukraine's strike campaign is compressing the revenue side simultaneously. Bloomberg counted 38 Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries from January through May 2026, with 16 in May alone — the highest monthly figure of the war. Two strikes on 16 and 18 June disabled both primary processing units at the Kapotnya refinery in Moscow — the capital's main fuel source — leaving it unable to process crude until at least early 2027.

Russia has responded by banning gasoline and jet fuel exports, drawing down strategic reserves, allowing lower-grade fuel blends, and importing gasoline from India and Belarus, while negotiations with Kazakhstan are complicated by the fact that a Ukrainian strike disrupted the feedstock supply to one potential Kazakh supplier.

Russian President Valdimir Putin publicly admitted queues at filling stations while summoning top officials to manage the crisis. Parliament passed legislation subsidizing gasoline imports from abroad.

Kommersant’s Crimea correspondent reported on 1 July that gasoline in Russian-occupied Crimea was selling for 185–200 rubles ($2.37–$2.56) a liter at filling stations when fuel was available. In Sevastopol, the pump price had reached 199 rubles ($2.54) a liter. Resellers were asking 250–400 rubles ($3.20–$5.12).

On 30 June, Crimea’s Russian-installed leader Sergey Aksyonov said on Telegram that large volumes of fuel would not reach the market soon, despite authorities’ ongoing efforts to resolve what he called the fuel crisis. He asked residents to be patient.

At the top of that range, gasoline costs more than twice as much as at a station. Kommersant described a market split between intermittent retail sales and a separate resale trade, with drivers paying sharply different prices depending on where they can buy fuel.

Stations open without warning

Kommersant said some filling stations were opening only briefly and without notice, leaving price boards blank. Where fuel was available, gasoline sold for 185 rubles ($2.37) per liter and diesel for 199 rubles ($2.54) per liter. Drivers have begun queuing from early morning, standing for hours in summer heat, and many still leave without filling their tanks.

Aksyonov said that public transport and municipal services had been fully supplied with fuel. His post did not explain how long those protected supplies would last.

Russia’s Energy Ministry warned on 2 July that online services claiming to track fuel availability at filling stations could not be considered reliable. The ministry said such platforms had become more active since late June and that more than 30 Russian regions had imposed limits on gasoline and diesel sales since early May.

National averages miss the local shock

Rosstat’s weekly price release recorded a 1.6% nationwide increase in gasoline prices and a 2.2% rise in diesel prices during the week of 23–29 June. Gasoline was 6.69% more expensive than at the end of May and 11.58% above its end-2025 price. Diesel had risen 6.94% since the end of May and 11% since December.

Rosstat’s index is based on weekly price checks for 110 goods and services in 280 Russian cities. Kommersant’s Crimea correspondent reported a different part of the market: whether drivers can find an open station at all, and how much they pay when they turn to resellers.

Moscow acknowledges wider shortages

Kommersant reported on Wednesday that Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak acknowledged fuel shortages at some Russian filling stations, blaming logistical changes. He maintained that Russia’s domestic market was supplied overall and said he hoped the disruption would have only a limited effect on price growth and inflation expectations.

The Bank of Russia says the fuel-market disruption may have a longer-lasting effect on inflation than in the past, as higher gasoline and diesel prices can filter through to other goods and services via transport and production costs.

Russia's fourth-largest oil refinery caught fire again on 2 July after a Ukrainian drone strike, days after a separate attack had already knocked its primary crude unit offline. The renewed fire hit the NORSI plant near Kstovo, Russia's Nizhny Novgorod Oblast, according to Ukrainian and Russian Telegram channels.

Ukraine's drone campaign against Russian oil refineries has forced several of the country's largest plants offline in recent months, part of a wider effort to strain the fuel revenues and military logistics sustaining Moscow's invasion.

Fire breaks out at Kstovo again

Drones struck the Lukoil-Nizhegorodnefteorgsintez refinery in Kstovo before dawn on 2 July, Ukrainian Telegram channel Exilenova+ reported. Witnesses filmed thick black smoke rising over the plant's industrial zone as drones were spotted over Kstovo and neighboring settlements shortly before the attack, according to Ukrainian media outlet Militarnyi.

Nizhny Novgorod Oblast governor Gleb Nikitin confirmed the strike on Telegram without naming the refinery, saying debris from downed drones caused "non-critical damage" to one industrial site and several residential buildings, according to NV. Advisor to Ukraine's defense minister Serhii Sternenko said drones hit the Lukoil-Nizhegorodnefteorgsintez plant specifically.

This is not the first time the refinery has burned in the past two weeks. Ukraine's forces last struck NORSI on 24 June, when drones disabled the CDU-5 primary crude unit, a facility that normally processes about 12,000 metric tons of oil per day, roughly a quarter of the refinery's total capacity, two industry sources told Reuters. That shutdown forced the St. Petersburg International Mercantile Exchange to suspend NORSI diesel and gasoline sales.

A refinery hit again and again

NORSI, formally known as Lukoil-Nizhegorodnefteorgsintez, is Russia's fourth-largest oil refinery by processing volume and its second-largest gasoline producer. The plant, located near Kstovo about 450 km east of Moscow, can process up to 17 million tonnes of crude oil a year. Before the recent wave of strikes, it produced roughly 5 million tonnes of gasoline, more than 5 million tonnes of diesel, 2 million tonnes of fuel oil, and about 500,000 tonnes of bitumen annually, along with over 50 other petroleum products.

The plant has become one of the most frequently hit targets in Ukraine's long-range strike campaign against Russian oil infrastructure. Drones struck the facility twice in May, on 18 and 20 May, disabling the AVT-6 primary crude unit and setting fires at two industrial sites. An earlier April strike also knocked out the thermal power plant supplying the refinery's industrial zone. The scale of damage from the 2 July attack has not yet been disclosed.

Starting 15 July, Russians applying for a French Schengen visa will no longer be able to have their paperwork submitted by a third party, according to The Moscow Times.

Under the new rules, applications at France’s visa center in Russia must be filed either by the applicant personally, by a parent or guardian acting for a child under 18, or by a spouse, child, or parent who can present original proof of the family relationship. 

VFS Global, the company that operates France’s visa centers in Russia, announced the change on 30 June, The Moscow Times reported. Applicants over 12 must still appear in person to provide biometric data. 

France is now the fourth EU country to tighten its Russian visa regime in a matter of weeks.

Eleven Schengen nations wrote to the European Commission on 4 June calling for a full ban on Russian tourist entries, The Moscow Times reported.

 EU Commission spokesperson Marcus Lammert has indicated Brussels is considering formal tightening as early as 2027.

The record France is walking back

The Élysée’s new restriction marks a shift from France’s previously permissive approach to Russian visa applicants. Earlier in 2026, France issued 23% more Schengen visas to Russian nationals than the year before, the steepest rise in the EU, even as Brussels was calling for tighter controls.

European diplomats told Euractiv that Paris was politically resistant to publishing those numbers. 

France, Spain, and Italy together accounted for nearly three-quarters of the more than 620,000 Schengen visas EU governments issued to Russian citizens in 2025, up more than 10% from 2024. 

Paris led in both volume and growth, even as the European Commission ended multiple-entry Schengen visas for Russians in November 2025, citing growing security risks.

The third-party ban does not cap France's total visa issuance. Rather, it removes workarounds in the visa process, as many Russian applicants had relied on third-party visa services and travel agencies to handle their submissions. 

Paris’ hardening line on Russia

France’s tightening of visa policy comes as it increasingly treats Russia as a direct security threat. 

Paris has stepped up enforcement against Russia’s sanctions-evasion network, seizing suspected “shadow fleet” tankers used to keep Russian oil moving despite Western restrictions. 

The French government’s latest strategic review, released in 2025, identifies Russia as France’s main security threat, citing its sabotage, espionage, cyberattacks, information operations, and nuclear intimidation as a long-term concern for the country and Europe at large

Latvia's state police will begin checking the documents of everyone who visits Russia's embassy in Riga starting Wednesday, Foreign Minister Baiba Braže announced. She described the measure as a direct answer to how Russian security services treat visitors to foreign diplomatic missions in Moscow. The Russian embassy has already been informed of the new procedure.

Reciprocity at the embassy door

The rule takes effect on 1 July and applies to all visitors to the mission. Braže said it responds to Russian actions in Moscow, where the authorities screen the documents of people entering foreign diplomatic buildings.

The step gives Russia the same treatment it imposes on others, applied at its own embassy in the Latvian capital.

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Russia shuts seven rail crossings on its NATO borders. It won’t say why

More restrictions in the pipeline

Latvia is weighing further pressure on Russia and Belarus alongside the checks. The foreign ministry has prepared amendments to ban imports of certain industrial goods of Russian and Belarusian origin.

Officials are also discussing cutting trade links further and reviewing specific exemptions in critical sectors. The screening joins a run of Latvian measures targeting Russian and Belarusian presence, including a ban on the two countries' citizens buying real estate, which parliament classified as a tool of hybrid warfare. Earlier amendments to the Immigration Law also stripped away one route to temporary residence permits obtained through investment programs.

Russia is closing a string of railway border crossings with Latvia, Estonia, and Finland from 1 July, giving no public reason for the decision.

The closures cover seven crossings: St. Petersburg-Finlyandsky, Vyborg, Vyartsilya, Lyuttya, and Svetogorsk on the border with Finland, Pechory-Pskovskiye on the border with Estonia, and Pytalovo on the border with Latvia, according to a government order signed by Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin and reported by TASS. The order suspends the movement of people, vehicles, goods, and cargo through the designated checkpoints; Russia's Foreign Ministry has been told to notify Riga, Tallinn, and Helsinki.

The closures land days after The Guardian, citing sources, reported that Russia is preparing a possible "provocation" against Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, or Poland. Lithuania's Defense Ministry, responding to that report, said there are currently no signs Russia is preparing a large-scale military attack on the Baltic states, but that the threat of sabotage — arson or other action against critical infrastructure on Lithuanian territory — remains high, according to Suspilne, citing Lithuanian broadcaster LRT. The ministry added that such rhetoric from Moscow aims to divert attention from Russian military setbacks in Ukraine and to weaken the resolve of Kyiv's partners to keep supplying military aid.

The rail closures are not an isolated step. Russia doubled railway freight tariffs on cargo bound for Estonia, Latvia, and Finland from 1 June, under a Federal Antimonopoly Service order that also closed off workarounds through Belarus, according to Estonian broadcaster ERR. An Estonian logistics expert told ERR that state carrier Russian Railways, facing a financial deficit, is also using the route to pressure Central Asian nations that ship goods through Russian territory toward the Baltic. Latvia's defense minister has separately said the country is working on a plan to dismantle transportation links at its eastern border if necessary, while Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia have discussed jointly ripping up the Soviet-era "Russian gauge" rail lines that still cross their borders with Russia and Belarus, as part of "counter-mobility" measures against a potential future attack.

The closures also follow weeks of warnings from Western officials about Russian intentions toward NATO's eastern flank once the war in Ukraine winds down. Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski told CBS News on 26 June that the Kremlin could organize a "false flag" operation within the next two years to justify an attack on a NATO member state. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said in December 2025 that the Baltic states are at risk and are next on Russia's list after Ukraine, and that Russia could potentially attack alliance countries within three to seven years if NATO does not increase defense investment.

Russia has not stated why it is closing the seven crossings, and Moscow's government order does not reference the Guardian report, the false-flag warnings, or the tariff increase.

A senior Russian Orthodox Church lawyer has proposed mandatory coursework in "Christian foundations of traditional spiritual and moral values" for students. Father Vasily Losev argues that they need a religious framework to understand abortion the way the church does, The Moscow Times reports.

The initiative by the Russian Orthodox Church came amid an ongoing campaign to restrict abortions and encourage higher birth rates in response to Russia's demographic decline.

Losev calls for Christian reinterpretation of abortion law

Losev argued that Russia's existing abortion framework is itself unconstitutional, because an abortion does not save, but destroys an emerging life. That is why, according to him, it cannot count as medical care under the constitutional right to life.

For an Orthodox believer, Losev said, it is easy to reason that life begins at conception. For secular people, that is not obvious, so future doctors and lawyers should study the concepts of life, death, and abortion through the prism of the Christian worldview.

"At that point, the scientific findings take on a different meaning..." he said. 

Losev also said Russian legal tradition, rooted in Christian values, historically treated abortion as killing an unborn child, and that the absence of that grounding in students today produces dangerous legal interpretations.

Losev frames Russian society as split into two camps: those who consider abortion murder and those who consider it a woman's right, and says this is a systemic contradiction the Constitution must resolve.

Russia intensifies anti-abortion campaign amid demographic decline

Meanwhile, Russia's birth rate has fallen to levels last seen before 1999, and 2025 figures show roughly 1.6 deaths for every birth nationwide, with the ratio reaching three to one in some regions.

State Duma Family Protection Committee chair Nina Ostanina has called for a "special demographic operation," language echoing the Kremlin's own term for the war, according to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

An anti-abortion film produced by a church-linked media channel began screening in Russian cinemas, schools, and government offices in November 2024.

Health Ministry data cited in Losev's own remarks show the campaign already shows results: pregnancy terminations fell 5% in 2025 to 321,000, with abortions performed at a woman's request down 9.9% to 120,600.

At least 30 Russian regions have adopted laws banning coercion to abortion, with 24 of those regions imposing fines reaching roughly $6,335 for institutions.

Half of Russia's primary oil refining capacity is now offline, according to Ukrainian energy analyst Mykhailo Honchar, president of the Centre for Global Studies "Strategy XXI," after a year of intensifying Ukrainian drone and missile strikes on the country's refineries.

Honchar's calculation, published 30 June in ZN.UA, puts the figure higher than independent trackers — the International Energy Agency and Reuters-cited industry sources have put offline capacity at roughly 33-40% through June — but the trajectory all sides agree on is the same: the second quarter of 2026 was the most intense and damaging phase yet of Ukraine's campaign against Russian fuel production.

The losses are forcing Moscow toward decisions it spent over a year avoiding. Gasoline and jet fuel exports are already banned. A diesel export ban was floated by Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak on 23 June, then walked back within days — Russia's Energy Ministry advised against it "for now" after a 27 June meeting, even as Novak admitted the country had "maxed out capacity across all oil refineries" and shortened repair timelines to cope. The reversal shows a government caught between a fuel crunch severe enough to consider cutting off one of its last major export earners and a fuel crunch not yet severe enough to justify the economic hit of doing so.

What changed in the second quarter

Honchar dates the campaign's symbolic start to 22 June 2022, when a Ukrainian drone first struck the Novoshakhtinsk refinery in Russia's Rostov Oblast — production capacity 7.5 million tonnes a year, knocked offline for only a few days at the time, but the first proof that a cheap drone could reach a target generating billions in war-funding revenue. Four years later, almost to the day, that same refinery was hit again, this time by two RK-360MTs Neptune cruise missiles converted for land-attack use, destroying both of its primary processing units — two-thirds of its total capacity — in a single strike on 31 May.

That shift from drones to missiles is, in Honchar's reading, the real story of the quarter. A drone warhead weighs tens of kilograms; the Neptune's weighs in the hundreds. Heavier ordnance means longer, costlier repairs — and Honchar argues that is the only way to permanently cripple Russia's largest refineries, pointing to Ukraine's own three-year campaign against its Kremenchuk refinery, which finally stopped operating in June 2025 after absorbing 260 drones and 60 missiles, a tally Energy Minister Denys Shmyhal gave the Verkhovna Rada in March.

The Moscow region has already felt what a single heavy strike can do. The Kapotnya refinery — Gazprom Neft's plant that supplies roughly 40% of the capital's gasoline and around half its diesel — was hit twice in 72 hours in mid-June, disabling both of its primary crude-processing units. Reuters reported the plant will not resume operations until 2027.

The next target: Russia's tankers

Honchar's piece is as much prescription as report. With drone strikes alone unable to permanently disable the heaviest infrastructure — pumping stations on Russia's pipeline network use 100-150-tonne pump assemblies that drone-delivered warheads cannot meaningfully damage — he argues Ukraine's logical next phase is maritime: a sustained campaign against tankers loading Russian crude and refined products in Black Sea and Sea of Azov ports, extending to the Mediterranean and beyond.

That escalation is already underway in smaller form. A Ukrainian naval drone struck the Arctic-class tanker Arctic Metagaz, reportedly carrying Yamal liquefied natural gas, in the central Mediterranean on 3 March. Honchar wants that scaled into a systematic blockade: burn storage tanks in port zones from the air, strike tankers and product carriers approaching Black Sea and Azov ports, then extend to cargo and container vessels carrying Russian exports outward.

Why this matters

Russia branded itself an energy superpower — what Honchar calls, in the piece's recurring shorthand, a "petrostate." He argues that identity is now being dismantled by the same tool that built it, with cheap Ukrainian drones doing in reverse what Russian missiles spent four years doing to Ukraine's power grid. Whether the numbers back his most dramatic claim or land closer to the more conservative 33-40% range tracked by the IEA and Reuters, the direction is not in dispute: Russia is rationing fuel in dozens of its own regions, importing gasoline by sea, and now debating — and for the moment declining — whether to choke off one more of its own export lifelines.

The EU bans aluminum exports to Russia—but not alumina, the powder from which aluminum is smelted. On 26 June, B4Ukraine and five partner organizations formally demanded that gap be closed in the next EU sanctions package, citing evidence that Ireland’s largest alumina refinery ships hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of the material to Russian smelters whose customers include weapons manufacturers.

Ireland’s Aughinish Alumina refinery—Europe’s largest—is owned by Russian aluminum giant RUSAL, whose controlling shareholder is Oleg Deripaska, sanctioned by the EU following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. RUSAL itself is not sanctioned, a distinction that has allowed intra-company alumina shipments to continue uninterrupted.

The six signatories—B4Ukraine, the Economic Security Council of Ukraine (ESCU), the Independent Anti-Corruption Commission (NAKO), the State Capture Accountability Project, the Dekleptocracy Project, and the International Partnership for Human Rights—represent a coalition of more than 100 civil society organizations.

They want the EU to add alumina under HS code 2818.20 to the restricted-goods list under Council Regulation 833/2014 and introduce controls against rerouting through third countries.

The call arrives days before Ireland assumes the rotating Presidency of the Council of the EU on 1 July 2026, giving Dublin direct influence over Council discussions, including negotiations on the next sanctions package.

Almost $308 million shipped to Russia

According to trade data compiled by ESCU and published by B4Ukraine, Aughinish shipped 540,497 tonnes of alumina worth more than $307.85 million to three RUSAL entities between April 2024 and March 2025: RUSAL’s Krasnoyarsk Aluminum Plant, RUSAL Trading House, and the Bratsk Aluminum Plant. Russia’s share of Aughinish’s exports rose from 23% in 2020 to 68% in 2024, as Euromaidan Press reported in May.

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Alumina requires no export license under EU or Irish law, and Ireland has no unilateral mechanism to restrict it—trade policy with third countries is an EU competence. The coalition argues that Ireland’s most effective lever is therefore political: pressing the European Commission and fellow member states to include alumina in future sanctions.

Supply-chain evidence

The coalition traces a supply chain from Aughinish’s RUSAL smelters to Moscow-based aluminum trader ASK LLC. Since 2022, more than 100 Russian defense-sector companies have purchased aluminum from ASK, including 40 entities currently sanctioned by the EU.

One ASK customer is the P.I. Plandin Arzamas Instrument-Making Plant, which manufactures BDG-1M damping gyroscope units—precision guidance components of the Kh-101 cruise missile, used extensively by Russia in strikes against Ukrainian cities and civilian infrastructure.

The link between Irish alumina and the Kh-101 is circumstantial, not direct. Because smelters continuously blend alumina from multiple sources, reporters working on an OCCRP-led investigation that informed the coalition’s call could not match a specific batch of Irish alumina to a specific weapon.

“Although this evidence constitutes a supply chain inference rather than direct proof of end-use,” B4Ukraine said, “the convergence of trade data, procurement records, and technical specifications establishes a compelling basis for regulatory action.”

Ireland faces pressure

The coalition is also asking Irish authorities to examine a 2024 restructuring that transferred ownership of the refinery operator, Limerick Alumina Refining Ltd, from Libertatem Materials Ltd to Libertatem Investments Ltd, and to determine whether it triggered obligations under foreign investment screening or corporate ownership disclosure rules.

Aughinish has said it complies with all applicable EU sanctions, export-control, and trade rules; Irish authorities have maintained that alumina is not a sanctioned product and that its export to Russia is therefore not restricted.

The EU’s 20th sanctions package, adopted on 23 April, expanded restrictions on Russian banks, energy infrastructure, and military suppliers but did not add alumina to the restricted-goods list.