Fuel Shortage in Russia in 2026: A Guide If You’re Travelling by Car or Motorbike

Yes, you can still travel to Russia by car or motorbike in 2026, but since late May the country has been dealing with a fuel crisis you can’t ignore when planning your route. Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian refineries (the НПЗ) have cut petrol production and, with summer demand at its peak, this has led to hours-long queues at filling stations, limits of 20-30 litres per vehicle, bans on filling jerry cans and rationing across dozens of regions. In the worst cases — Crimea above all — open sales were suspended altogether.

The good news: with a bit of planning the trip is still perfectly doable. You just need to know where to fill up, how much fuel they’ll actually give you and which tools Russian drivers themselves use to find petrol in real time. In this guide I’ll walk you through the current situation, the trickiest areas and — most importantly — the sources and apps to keep handy so you don’t end up with an empty tank.

Last updated: 18 July 2026. The situation changes week by week; at the end of the article I’ve listed the sources you can check before setting off.

What’s going on with fuel in Russia

Since late May 2026, drone attacks on Russian refineries have hit their capacity to produce petrol and diesel. With plants running below normal and consumption soaring during the holiday season, the result has been a shortage the authorities were slow to acknowledge and which has forced fuel rationing across much of the country.

It isn’t exactly that there’s “no” petrol: experts keep pointing out that a good part of the problem is panic buying. When people see queues, they fill the tank and grab a jerry can or two “just in case”, which drains the stations even faster. On top of that, oil-rich Russia has always been fairly tight on refining capacity: it produces crude in abundance, but far less finished petrol, the kind domestic consumption actually needs.

A few figures to give you a sense of the scale: according to Rosstat, petrol has gone up by around 14 % since the start of the year, three times official inflation. In the week of 7-13 July, petrol rose 2,3 % and diesel 3,2 %. The wildest prices are in Crimea and Sevastopol, where a litre of 95 has topped 200 roubles. And the number of regions with restrictions has grown week after week until it covers most of the country.

Russian market analysts expect things to gradually settle over the summer, but that’s only a forecast: it depends on refineries getting back up to speed and on there being no fresh attacks. So if your trip is in the next few weeks, don’t assume it will all be sorted — check how things actually stand before you leave.

How it affects you by car, motorbike or campervan

As a foreign traveller behind the wheel, the crisis boils down to four very concrete hassles:

• Queues. At stations that do have fuel you can wait anywhere from 30 minutes to several hours. In late June, some drivers in Irkutsk spent up to eight hours in the queue.
• A limit per vehicle. Most chains will serve you between 20 and 30 litres per stop. Since you can’t fill up completely, you have to stop more often.
• No jerry cans. Filling spare containers is banned at many stations — precisely the trick you’d use to stretch your range on long stretches.
• Closed stations. Plenty of independent and small-brand filling stations simply have nothing to sell: price boards switched off and pumps blocked off with cones is now a common sight.

Regions with restrictions and specific limits

Limits vary hugely from one region and one chain to another, and they change almost daily. Here are some real examples from mid-July 2026 so you know what you might run into:

• Krasnodar Krai (the gateway to the Black Sea along the M-4): up to 30 litres in the tank, 10 litres in a jerry can.
• Rostov Oblast: up to 40 litres per vehicle.
• Stavropol Krai: up to 35 litres per passenger car.
• Gazprom Neft (one of the big chains): in town, 30 litres of petrol or 60 of diesel per stop and no jerry cans; at highway stations, 30 litres of petrol or up to 200 of diesel.
• Rosneft in Irkutsk: up to 50 litres a day per car; at other chains in the area, 30 litres.

On top of the litre limits, several regions have brought in rationing by number plate, on odd and even days: cars whose plate starts with 0, 2, 4, 6 or 8 fill up on even days of the month, and those starting with 1, 3, 5, 7 or 9 on odd days. Tambov Oblast, Kursk Oblast and others have applied it. Some, such as Oryol, introduced it and then dropped it once the queues eased. In Zabaykalsky Krai they’re even trialling an electronic queue with a QR code through a bot: you book the day, the time and the fuel type before turning up.

If you’re driving on foreign plates, this odd-and-even system is a headache: it isn’t always clear how it applies to non-Russian plates. So in areas with rationing, the practical move is to ask at the station itself and never let the tank run low.

Areas worth avoiding (or preparing very carefully)

Crimea: the most extreme case

Crimea is by far the worst-hit area. On 21 June the authorities suspended open fuel sales and reserved supplies for state and emergency services; a state of emergency was declared and the price of 95 shot past 200 roubles a litre whenever there was stock. The shortage hit the peninsula’s tourist season head-on. My advice is clear: don’t plan a driving route through Crimea while the crisis lasts. Fuel aside, it’s a sensitive area because of the conflict and I advise against it anyway.

The south and the route to the Black Sea

Krasnodar and Stavropol krais and Rostov Oblast — in other words, the classic route to the sea along the M-4 motorway — have seen enormous queues, because on top of the shortage there’s the summer traffic of Russian holidaymakers. If you’re heading to Sochi or the coast, budget for longer stops and reach the area with a full tank.

Siberia and the Far East

Regions such as Irkutsk and Zabaykalsky Krai declared high-alert status despite producing their own fuel. On these stretches, with vast distances between towns, the problem isn’t just the queue but your range: if one highway station is dry, the next one may be hundreds of kilometres away. Here, planning your refuelling stops is critical.

Filling up in Russia as a foreigner: fuel types, chains and payment

Before we get to the “where to find petrol” part, it’s worth being clear on three basics about refuelling in Russia:

• Fuel types. You’ll see pumps marked АИ-92, АИ-95 and АИ-98 (petrol, by octane rating) and ДТ (diesel). Premium grades have their own names, such as G-Drive or Pulsar. Most modern cars run on АИ-95.
• Reliable chains. Fill up at the big networks — Rosneft, Lukoil, Gazprom Neft, Tatneft, Bashneft: they have better quality control and are more likely to have stock than independent stations. Always keep the receipt.
• How to pay. This is the critical point for a foreigner. Visa and Mastercard cards issued outside Russia do not work in the country. You need roubles in cash or a Russian card. At the height of the crisis, some stations (in Irkutsk, for example) were selling only to fuel cards or Russian cards, not for cash.

So if you’re getting around by vehicle, I’d recommend carrying roubles in cash and, above all, getting yourself a Russian MIR card such as T-Bank’s as a foreigner: it sorts out payment for petrol, tolls, food on the road and accommodation.

How to find out where there’s petrol right now

This is the most useful part of the guide. Russian drivers have organised themselves to share in real time which stations have fuel and where the queues are. These are the tools you can use too:

1. The Yandex map (the most practical option)

In July 2026 Yandex launched a map showing fuel availability and queues at filling stations, open to anyone through the Yandex Maps, Yandex Go and Yandex Zapravki (Filling Stations) apps. It works on technology similar to “Yandex Traffic”: it combines payment data, information from Yandex Maps and short surveys of drivers, who flag whether a station has a queue and what fuel is left. It started as a trial in Moscow and St. Petersburg and is now spreading across the country. If you’re only going to install one app, make it Yandex Maps.

2. Crowdsourced web maps

• GdeBENZ (gdebenz.ru): a real-time “where is there petrol right now” map, fed by users themselves.
• BenZinMap (benzinmap.ru): a map of petrol sale restrictions by region, handy for getting the big picture before settling on a route.

3. Telegram channels and bots

Telegram is by far where local information travels fastest. There are two kinds of resource:

• Petrol-finding bots, such as RuToplivoBot (“Где заправиться | Petrol radar”), which help you track down stations with fuel.
• Regional channels and chats along the lines of “Бензин [city] | Где заправиться” (“Petrol [city] | Where to fill up”) or “Где залить? | [city]”, where drivers post videos of the queues and flag which stations have stock. On Telegram, search for the name of your destination city together with the words бензин (petrol) or АЗС (filling station).

To use Yandex Maps and Telegram channels on the move you need mobile internet in the car. If you haven’t sorted that out yet, here’s how to get data with an eSIM for Russia that installs in five minutes.

Sources to track the situation before you leave

To see the overall state of the country and decide whether your route is realistic, these are the sources I check (they’re in Russian, but your browser’s translator handles them perfectly well):

• Daily timeline of the crisis on T—Zh (t-j.ru/pustoi-bak): it gathers restrictions by region, price rises and official announcements every day. It’s the best day-by-day snapshot out there.
• List of regions with restrictions (t-j.ru/news/kakie-regiony-bez-benza): an updated rundown of which regions have limited petrol and diesel sales.

Between these sources and the maps above, you’ve got both the “how are things generally?” and the “where do I fill up in the next 50 km?” covered.

Practical checklist for your road trip

• Never drop below half a tank. Fill up whenever you can, even if they’ll only give you 20-30 litres. The golden rule these weeks is “tank full whenever possible”.
• Enter the tricky areas with a full tank (the south, Crimea — better avoided — and the long Siberian stretches).
• Fill up early in the morning. Many stations get their tanker at dawn and have run out by midday.
• Favour the big chains (Rosneft, Lukoil, Gazprom Neft, Tatneft) over independent stations.
• Carry roubles in cash and a Russian MIR card. Without one of the two, you can have petrol right in front of you and no way to pay for it.
• Sort out mobile internet (eSIM for Russia) so you can use Yandex Maps and the Telegram channels.
• Download offline maps in case you lose coverage on rural stretches.
• Add spare time to every leg. An hour in a queue can wreck your day.
• Don’t count on spare jerry cans: at many stations they won’t fill them.

Frequently asked questions