For Russians, Ukraine's strikes are getting harder to ignore | DW News

Filling up a petrol tank in Moscow now involves a long wait. And that's if fuel is even available. A cause of frustration for Muscovites. This situation is bad. There are queues everywhere. Some places have no petrol at all. You can pass three stations with no fuel whatsoever. Then you have to queue. You might wait for an hour or two hours or 30 minutes. It depends on your luck. This is the second petrol station where I've tried to fill up today. Where I live, half of the stations are closed. And at the others, there are queues. And you cannot get more than 20 litres there. So I came to a second station to try to fill up my tank. Ukraine's drone attacks on Russian oil refineries, like this one in Moscow on June 18th, have increased in recent weeks. They've become increasingly hard to ignore and have forced Russia to shift resources to protect key infrastructure. Speaking to Russian state television on Sunday, the Russian president acknowledged the impact of the attacks but was quick to play it down, instead remaining firm in what he believes are Ukraine's attempts to weaken Russia. Of course, these strikes on our infrastructure facilities are causing problems. That's obvious. We're currently seeing a certain shortage. But it's not critical. It's an attempt to create the conditions to launch a negotiation process on terms favourable to them, our enemy. We will not give them such a chance. All the more so, and this is important, none of these terrorist raids have any impact on the situation at the front. And while the Kremlin insists nothing has changed on the battlefield, the growing fuel shortages from Ukrainian strikes are making Putin's war hard for Russians to ignore. Let's take a closer look at this and bring in Christina Harward from the Institute for the Study of War's Russia team. Christina, welcome to DW. Now, Russians are frustrated about fuel shortages. We heard it there. How much disruption and discontent is this causing in the country? Yeah, I think it's pretty hard to ignore at this point. Not only are the Ukrainian strikes affecting more and more Russian regions, they're attacking the same oil refineries, sometimes only a couple days apart. But also the shortages on the fuel and the gasoline that are resulting from those strikes have really spread all across Russia, as well as into all of the Russian occupied areas of Ukraine. Again, at this point, it's going to be hard for the Russian authorities to ignore this crisis. And they have chosen not to. How remarkable is it that Putin would acknowledge the problem? Again, I think Putin didn't have much of a chance, much of an option. He had to, he had to acknowledge it. I think what's super interesting here is to note the rhetorical line that he seems to have chosen in this acknowledgement. He is, of course, in traditional Putin fashion, downplaying the effect of these Ukrainian successful strikes. He is acknowledging that the Russian authorities are taking steps or trying to take steps to combat the issues, whether that be banning exports of different types of fuel, looking to other countries to boost imports, as well as looking to boost production of Russian air defense systems to protect the oil refineries that Ukraine keeps striking. But that said, Putin is coupling this rhetoric about the crisis with his longstanding narratives about these alleged Russian successes on the battlefield. So the message he's really sending the Russian people is that the crisis is affecting us. It is hurting. We're going to get through this. But what really matters is victory on the battlefields. We just need to persevere. He says they're taking steps. But I want to know from you, is this a crisis Putin can actually solve? Where could Russia get additional fuel? I think it's going to be very difficult to solve for a couple of different reasons. One, if you remember last year in 2025, Russia suffered a somewhat similar gas shortage, again, because of Ukrainian strikes on energy infrastructures such as the refineries. But those shortages happened last year at the tail end of the summer season, which is when Russia experiences historically high gasoline demand. This year, however, the shortages happened in May, at the very start of this summer high demand season. So it's going to be really interesting to see if Russian authorities can combat this. I think the other thing to note here is that the Russian authorities have mostly, up until now, been trying to fix the symptoms of the crisis, not the cause. And so something that was super notable in Putin's admission today is that he acknowledged that Russia lacks sufficient air defenses to protect its rear. Again, I don't think Russia is going to be able to suddenly boost its air defense production in order to make enough of these systems to protect all of the facilities that they need to protect across a really large amount of territory in Russia's western areas. Given the current situation, do you see any cracks emerging within the Kremlin or, you know, the system that keeps Putin in power? So we are getting some reports that some of the west, excuse me, the Russian elites might be experiencing war fatigue. They might be questioning Russia's ability to withstand continued economic strain. However, Putin has a really solid grip on power. He has a very systematized system in place in order to make sure that his loyalists remain loyal. Now, that being said, it is interesting that Putin is heading into their state Duma elections in the fall. So they are going to have to be careful about how they craft this narrative for the voters because they want to make sure that the elections appear to be a positive referendum for Putin's policies related to the war. Now, we've seen Ukraine increasingly taking the war deep into Russia. That is part of why this is now a situation that the Kremlin has to address. How has the sense of security in the country changed? I mean, I think, again, there's been a lot of talk about Putin's heightened sense of security fears, which is more or less normal for a wartime leader in trying to make sure he's safe in his country. In terms of fears throughout the rest of Russia, we have seen some reports that Russian authorities are worried that these long queues, whether that be for the gas stations or there's a lot of lines forming to cross the Kerch Bridge over the Kerch Strait. We've seen reports that Russian authorities are worried this might be an attempt or an opportunity for Ukraine to repeat Operation Spiderweb that they did previously, where they were able to put drones in different trucks, and then the drones were able to then go strike Russian airfields. So that's definitely something on the Russians' mind. Does Ukraine have the capacity to sustain or even intensify its attacks on Russia's critical infrastructure? So I think so far we are not seeing any indicators that Ukraine cannot sustain the production of its drones that it needs to conduct these repeated, very deep strikes. I think the better question to ask is, will Russia be able to counter them and defend them? And until Russia is able to figure that out, I think Ukraine is going to be able to continue, if not even escalate, the strike campaign. All right. So it looks like Russia is weakened to some extent by these continued Ukrainian attacks. How should Ukraine's partners handle this situation? Especially those in Europe. Could growing pressure on Putin now possibly create momentum for peace talks? Yes, I think absolutely. We're starting to see some conversations shift in different parts of the West about renewed peace negotiations with Russia, potentially in the coming weeks or months. I think something interesting to note here, and that I think a lot of Ukraine's Western partners have definitely picked up on, is that the situation, should these talks start up again, would be very different than where we left off the talks last time in 2025. This is a point that a lot of Ukraine's Western partners are starting to make publicly in their statements. Ukraine has had successes not only in the long-range strike campaign that we're talking about here now, but also on the battlefield itself. So this will definitely bring some different types of leverage and pressure that Ukraine can apply in negotiations, and therefore that Ukraine's partners could also apply to Russia negotiations. Christina Harward, thank you so much for sharing your insights with us.