"It's A Disaster": Russia Plunges Into Horrible Fuel Crisis. Kremlin is Non-Responsive - The Russian Dude

[TexasTowelie]

Russia is plunging into a full-blown fuel crisis that exposes the deepest vulnerabilities of Putin’s war machine and the collapsing myth of Kremlin control. Oil refineries across Russia are burning from Belgorod to Krasnodar, 30 to 40 percent of refining capacity is offline, gas stations are shutting down, and entire regions are rationing fuel like it’s the 1990s. Crimea now limits drivers to 20 liters, annexed territories face widespread closures, and independent stations have nothing left to sell. What the Kremlin calls “temporary limitations” is in reality a devastating nationwide shortage created by Ukrainian strikes on the core of Russia’s energy infrastructure. This isn’t a minor disruption or market fluctuation—this is the largest and most politically dangerous breakdown of Russia’s energy system in decades.

The crisis shatters the illusion of Putin’s invincibility. For years propaganda insisted Russia was winning, the economy was stable, and the war was under control. But refinery explosions, endless lines at gas stations, and rationing inside Russia show the opposite. The Kremlin can ignore battlefield losses, but it cannot hide economic collapse, panic among elites, growing shortages, and a leader who looks increasingly powerless. With Ukraine striking deep inside Russian territory, the myth of “red lines” has dissolved, the image of the strongman is cracking, and even Trump publicly calls Putin weak. What was once a psychological fortress has become an exposed, fragile system no longer protected by fear.

As the war comes home, ordinary Russians now face the direct consequences of a conflict the Kremlin promised would never affect them. Shortages, rationing, frantic policy reversals, and silence from state media reveal a government that has no plan. The economy is collapsing under labor shortages, budget deficits, a failing shadow fleet, and now crippling refinery damage. Every burning oil facility erodes the foundation of Putin’s rule, because authoritarian systems survive on money and myth—and Russia is rapidly losing both.

This fuel crisis marks a turning point. It exposes the Kremlin’s inability to defend critical infrastructure, protect its economy, or maintain its image of total control. It shows a nation once calling itself an energy superpower now scrambling to buy gasoline from Belarus at inflated prices. And most importantly, it reveals the beginning of the end of the Putin era, where elites question his competence, citizens question his promises, and the world sees a leader who can no longer manage the consequences of his own war. Russia isn’t just struggling with oil shortages—Russia is watching its entire system crack in real time, and the Kremlin has no response.