Independent gas station chains, which handle about 40% of fuel sales in Russia, can no longer restock their gasoline supplies. Chats used by oil traders and managers at those chains are “in a panic,” the independent Russian news outlet Novaya Gazeta Europe reported.

“The 92 is gone, the 95 is gone. Fuel trucks are sitting at the VLPDS. There’s an air raid alert right now. They’re not loading,” the outlet quoted one post from such a chat, calling it typical.

Managers of two independent chains — one serving Moscow and the Moscow region, another based in Siberia — told journalists that by May it had become impossible to buy petroleum products for their networks: “There’s no fuel — none at all.”

At the largest fuel supply hubs, supplies as of May 20 were available only “by order” — and not only gasoline, one of the outlet’s sources said, but also diesel, which Russia produces in greater quantities than it consumes and exports as surplus.

The sources attributed the shortage to vertically integrated oil companies — which extract, refine, and sell fuel themselves — having nearly stopped selling petroleum products on the St. Petersburg exchange after refinery shutdowns, redirecting everything to their own gas stations instead.

Independent chains are still selling off fuel purchased before Ukrainian drone strikes on refineries intensified sharply in May, the sources said. After that stock runs out, they warned, retail prices will rise. On the wholesale market, the price of AI-92 gasoline at the end of May was up 25–27% from mid-February levels, though retail prices will climb more slowly. Vertically integrated companies, the sources said, will try to hold down price increases at their own stations through government subsidies.

In May, Ukrainian drone strikes forced nearly all major refineries in central Russia to suspend or reduce production. These facilities account for about a quarter of Russia’s total refining capacity. The outlet Vot Tak noted that drone strikes spared only two of Russia’s largest refineries — the Omsk and Angarsk plants, both located beyond the Urals.

Among the refineries that shut down after drone strikes is the plant in Ryazan. On May 21, residents of that city began complaining of gasoline shortages at filling stations. Authorities have not officially confirmed a fuel shortage in Ryazan.

In occupied Sevastopol, gasoline sales at filling stations have been capped at 20 liters per person as of May 22, the city’s governor Mikhail Razvozhaev announced.