Russia's two-month fuel crisis is showing signs of easing, with Omsk becoming the first Russian region to lift all limits on petrol and diesel sales at filling stations, Governor Vitaly Khotsenko said on July 28.

The caps, in place since June 22, had held drivers to about 40 litres of petrol and 80 litres of diesel per visit. Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak told reporters the situation is "gradually stabilising", with refineries returning to operation and supply to filling stations improving nationally, though he acknowledged the picture remains “strained” in some regions, particularly Siberia.

There has been no official estimate of the reduction in throughput by refineries. Sergey Vakulenko, an independent energy analyst, estimated the fall to be 13.5% about two months ago, but as the Ukrainian campaign intensified estimates of between 25% and 30% of refineries being down have been floated by various observers.

The shortage, triggered by a sustained Ukrainian drone campaign against Russia’s oil refineries, has forced the Kremlin to ration fuel, subsidise imports and rework exchange trading rules — and its slow, uneven unwinding is now a real-time gauge of how much damage the strikes have done to Russia's refining sector.

Independent tracking confirms that the situation is easing somewhat. Refineries with a combined 40mn tonnes of annual capacity have resumed selling fuel on the St Petersburg exchange (SPIMEX) after repairs, though plants accounting for a further 45mn tonnes have not, according to Newsbase, which also cites crowdsourced petrol-station data from economist Janis Kluge showing station queues gradually shortening. Industry watchers point to the return of Surgutneftegas's 415,000 b/d Kirishi refinery that is coming back online — one of the country's two largest, historically supplying more than 6% of Russia's total output and over 5% of its petrol — as a potentially significant contributor ot renewed supplies, though analysts caution the plant's secondary units, including its hydrocracker, may not all be back at full capacity. The Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) has made use of improved drone targeting accuracy to hit the most sensitive parts of refineries that are hardest to replace.

Russia's government has repeatedly extended its export bans on petrol, diesel and jet fuel through 2026 rather than announcing a single blanket ban for the rest of the year. Moscow imposed a full ban on gasoline exports and extended diesel-export restrictions to direct producers in July, alongside an existing ban on jet fuel exports running through November, according to Newsbase.

Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak told a government meeting chaired by President Vladimir Putin on July 8 that the restrictions are needed to redirect fuel to the domestic market, where motor-fuel demand is running about a third above last year's level due to Ukraine's sustained drone campaign against Russian refineries.

This is the way the Kremlin usually deals with periodic fuel shortages, induced by the war and it was the same last year: Moscow extended a gasoline export ban to end-February in December 2025, then kept rolling it forward as refining capacity kept falling, most recently pushing the current package of restrictions to July 31 with wide expectation, Newsbase reports, that it will be extended again given how little refining capacity has been repaired.

Russia will extend its ban on petrol exports until the end of 2026, Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said on July 27, according to the state news agency TASS. "On the gasoline export ban, we also decided at the headquarters meeting to extend it for both producers and non-producers... it will be extended until the end of the year," Novak said. The gasoline ban has been in place since April 1 and was due to expire on July 31; it now runs through December.

Diesel is being treated differently: Novak said the separate diesel export ban, imposed on July 8 amid the same fuel crisis, would be lifted "as the market recovers," to avoid leaving refineries oversupplied and forced to cut processing volumes once Ukrainian drone damage to refining capacity is repaired. Both restrictions stem from the fuel shortage triggered by Ukraine's sustained strikes on Russian refineries. Diesel exports could restart as soon as September or October once the harvest season eases domestic demand, assuming the returning refineries stay online the government said.

Overall, Russia is more likely to remain a net petrol importer than an exporter for the rest of the year.

The crisis has left a lasting mark on consumer behaviour. Sales of electric and hybrid vehicles have surged, with some models running short, as buyers hedge against the shortage, Kommersant reported, citing analytics agency Avtostat data showing hybrid and EV sales up 80% between June 29 and July 19 versus the first-half weekly average. Charging-session volumes on the network run by state nuclear operator Rosatom rose by a similar margin in early July, independent outlet The Bell reported, with plug-in hybrid owners increasingly finding it cheaper to charge than to queue for petrol.