Ukrainian drone strikes have crippled Russia’s oil refining industry, forcing an unprecedented wave of refinery shutdowns and triggering a nationwide fuel crunch, The Moscow Times reported on September 30.

By late September, nearly 38% of Russia’s oil refining capacity—around 338,000 tons of crude per day—was offline, according to data from the analytics firm Ciala.

Output of gasoline and diesel plunged by 6% in August and another 18% in September, with downtime at refineries hitting levels “without historical precedent.” The disruptions eclipsed the previous record set just a month earlier, when 23% of refining capacity was knocked offline. The latest figures also surpass earlier peaks in May 2022 and May 2020.

Ciala estimates that around 70% of the outages stem directly from drone strikes, which by the end of September had knocked out roughly one-quarter of Russia’s total refining capacity—about 236,000 tons per day.

In September alone, four major refineries were forced to halt operations after drone attacks, including the Kirishi “Kinef” plant in Leningrad region—the second-largest in Russia—and Rosneft’s Ryazan refinery, which ranks among the country’s top five.

The Kinef plant went offline on September 14, while the Ryazan facility was hit on September 5. Novokuibyshevsk refinery stopped processing on September 20, followed two days later by Gazprom’s Astrakhan gas processing plant.

The impact on Russia’s domestic fuel market has been severe. Gasoline output dropped by 1 million tons in September, while shortages grew to cover as much as 20% of national consumption.

The hardest-hit regions are the Far East and occupied Crimea, where fuel stations this week limited sales to no more than 30 liters per customer. In total, more than 20 regions across Russia, from Sakhalin to Nizhny Novgorod, are now facing shortages.

Russian oil companies have little ability to stabilize the situation, economist Vladislav Inozemtsev noted. Repairs could take months, especially under sanctions that block access to Western equipment used to modernize refineries during the 2010s.

“Chinese substitutes cannot easily replace this technology,” Inozemtsev added.

To contain the crisis, Moscow banned gasoline exports and moved to secure emergency imports, temporarily scrapping import duties on gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel within the Eurasian Economic Union. Authorities may even lower environmental standards to allow domestic refineries to produce more fuel.

The fuel crunch is already feeding inflationary pressures, warned Vladimir Chernov, an analyst with Freedom Finance Global. Wholesale fuel prices have surged more than 40% since January, while retail prices are climbing at 11–12% annually—the sharpest rise in seven years.

“The rising cost of fuel inevitably drives up expenses in agriculture, transportation, and logistics, translating into higher prices for food and essential goods,” Chernov explained.

Earlier, another major fire was reported at an oil refinery in Feodosia, located in Russian-occupied Crimea.

“It is now the seventh day – by the way, it is something that has never happened before – of an emergency situation at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant. The situation is critical,” Zelensky said in his evening address.

The president warned that the facility, Europe’s largest nuclear plant, is relying solely on diesel generators to keep safety systems functioning after Russian strikes severed its external power lines. Located in Russian-occupied city of Enerhodar on the Dnipro River, the plant sits close to the front line.

“The generators and the plant were not designed for this, and have never operated in this mode for so long. And we already have information that one generator has failed,” he added.

Zelensky accused Moscow of obstructing the repair of the power lines through continued shelling, noting: “And this is a threat to absolutely everyone. No terrorist in the world has ever dared to do to a nuclear plant what Russia is doing right now.” He said he had ordered Ukraine’s government and diplomats to bring international attention to the crisis.

Russia, which seized the plant in 2022, claimed last week that it has been providing backup power since an attack it blamed on Ukraine. The six reactors have been shut down since Moscow’s occupation, but the facility still requires electricity to maintain cooling and prevent a nuclear incident.

In a statement issued by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), chief Rafael Grossi said that the UN agency is “in constant contact with the two sides with the aim to enable the plant’s swift re-connection to the electricity grid.”

“While the plant is currently coping thanks to its emergency diesel generators – the last line of defence – and there is no immediate danger as long as they keep working, it is clearly not a sustainable situation in terms of nuclear safety,” Grossi added.

The Zaporizhzhia plant has faced repeated safety concerns since Russia’s invasion, including power outages, shelling in the vicinity, and staffing shortages.