Russia's growing fuel shortage, driven by Ukraine's long-range drone strikes on refineries and energy infrastructure, has prompted Moscow to import gasoline from Asia and allow the use of monomethylaniline — an octane-boosting additive — in fuel production for six months, reported Kommersant.
The Russian government plans to waive import duties of 5% on gasoline imported from China, South Korea, and Singapore, according to the report. It will also propose increasing imports from Belarus.
According to the analytics firm Ciala, nearly 38% of Russia's oil refining capacity was offline at the end of September with 70% of the outages caused by drone strikes.
In March 2024, a Kyiv intelligence source told Reuters that Ukrainian drones had hit 12 Russian oil refineries. Most recently, sources including Firstpost and Financial Times cited that 16 of Russia's 38 refineries had been targeted, some repeatedly, during a particular period of intensified strikes.
"The most effective sanctions — the ones that work the fastest — are the fires at Russia's oil refineries, its terminals, oil depots," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in an address to the Ukrainian people in mid-September.
"Russia's war is essentially a function of oil, of gas, of all its other energy resources," he added.
Several regions in Russia are facing gas shortages and authorities in Crimea are imposing rationing and freezing fuel prices in response to persistent shortages.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak, though, has said that overall domestic fuel supply is under control.
"We are witnessing some problems with supplies across some regions, while the energy ministry and the regions are jointly solving the problems in manual mode," Novak told reporters Wednesday.
Solange Reyner ✉
Solange Reyner is a writer and editor for Newsmax. She has more than 15 years in the journalism industry reporting and covering news, sports and politics.
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