Russia’s fifth-largest oil company, Tatneft, has imposed temporary limits on petrol and diesel sales at every one of its filling stations across the country, while the state-controlled Rosneft group—including its Bashneft and TNK subsidiaries—has banned the sale of fuel into canisters nationwide. Tatneft customers are now restricted to between 20 and 30 litres of petrol per visit, with diesel capped at 40 to 60 litres for cars and 300 litres for lorries. In a parallel move that hints at deeper technical disruptions, the company is accepting only cash payments, suspending card transactions, mobile apps and fuel cards. Rosneft, for its part, is limiting pump deliveries to 90 litres per vehicle, citing “increased seasonal demand” as the official reason.

The restrictions follow a sharp escalation in Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian energy infrastructure. In late May, a strike set ablaze a refinery in Moscow’s Kapotnya district, while another hit an oil depot in the Krasnodar region. According to industry data, Russian oil production fell to its lowest level in a year that month, with almost all major refining facilities in the central part of the country either reducing runs or halting operations entirely. Planned seasonal maintenance, which typically begins in May, has compounded the unscheduled outages, creating what one State Duma deputy described as a “superposition of circumstances.” Igor Ananskikh, first deputy chairman of the energy committee, insisted the measures are local and temporary, telling Russian media that “nothing critical” is unfolding.

Yet the geography of the shortages tells a more sobering story. The BBC’s Russian service has tallied at least 33 affected regions, stretching from Moscow and the Volga to the agricultural heartlands of Krasnodar and the already strained peninsula of Crimea, where limits on high-octane petrol were imposed in late May. Even Lukoil, another major player, has introduced restrictions at some sites. In Chelyabinsk, Tatneft forecourts display warnings of “technical reasons” for the caps, while in Moscow drivers report being met by attendants who announce the new rules in person. The cash-only policy, observed from Tatarstan to the Urals, suggests that the disruptions may extend beyond physical fuel scarcity to the digital payments infrastructure that underpins modern retail.

Financial markets have taken note. Tatneft’s ordinary shares fell 5 percent on the Moscow Exchange on 16 June, with preferred stock dropping 5.2 percent, before paring some losses. Moscow-based analysts at Vector Capital warned that the shares risk further declines if the situation does not normalise soon. Officials maintain that the limits are a precautionary response to overlapping repair schedules and logistics snags, and point to Crimea, where they say the situation has already stabilised. But with the summer driving season under way and the agricultural sector heavily dependent on diesel, the coming weeks will test whether Russia’s refining system can absorb the cumulative strain of drone warfare, planned outages and surging domestic demand—without feeding through to the price of fuel at the pump or, eventually, to the cost of air travel.