According to another article I saw, local governments in rural Russia are already suspending trash collection and other services due to fuel shortages, even to the point where people are being told to find their own transportation to the hospital because there's no gas for ambulances. For now, it's the middle of nowhere Siberia being hit with those kinds of problems but I think we'll see them spread westward unless the fuel shortage gets better soon.
this post was submitted on 03 Jul 2026
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Chita is in Zabaikalsky Krai, so it's probably the same issue that was being complained about in Russia's Duma in this other United24 article:
https://lemmy.today/post/55908488
One of them, Vyacheslav Markhayev, said people were queuing 36 hours to get just 15 litres of gasoline in the far eastern Zabaikalsky region.
Anyway:
A driver heading home to Saint Petersburg spent 39 hours in line to buy fuel in the Siberian city of Chita, Meduza reported on July 3.
Vlad and his wife were driving home from Vladivostok, where they had collected a newly bought car, when they stopped in Chita to refuel. He recounted joining the line at a Rosneft station on the city's edge on June 28 at 11 p.m. The tank was not filled until June 30, in the early afternoon.
City stations were dispensing just 15 liters (4 gallons) per car, he explained, blaming suppliers who delivered only 500 liters (132 gallons) per outlet. The Rosneft station he chose capped each fill at 50 liters (13 gallons).
Chita has become a bottleneck for drivers crossing the country. Vlad noted that the last station to the east lies in Skovorodino, an 11-hour drive away, with no fuel in between, funneling westbound traffic from Vladivostok into the same lines.
So, if that that's kind of an important point for east-west road logistics for Russia, that seems like it's got potential to cause other cascading logistical issues from decoupling eastern and western Russia.
Russia does have the Trans-Siberian Railway, which is apparently handled by diesel trains, and there are diesel road vehicles. Diesel doesn't (at the moment, at any rate) suffer from the level of shortages that gasoline does.
EDIT: I also gotta say that if the guy is right about there being no fuel available between Skovorodino and Chita, at some point, I'd think that you just aren't going to make it from Chita to Skovorodino short of maybe going through the queue multiple times.
checks Google Maps
That's 924 km away. That's 574 miles, so if you get 13 gallons from this fuel station with the higher cap, and that's all you have in the tank, you'd need a vehicle capable of 44 mpg to make it to the next refueling point. I mean...a Prius or something like that can do that, but a lot of even newer vehicles here in the US can't.
That said, he was coming from Skovorodino. Maybe they're imposing separate fuel limits based on the direction you're going or something like that.
I don't imagine the locals will be too pleased with gas being shipped from the untouched refineries in Siberia to Moscow.
Then again they haven't been too happy with Moscow for a while now.
I also believe that that region has suffered the most from the invasion of Ukraine due to heavy recruiting in the destitute regions.
It would be interesting to see China claim back the land it lost due to the century of humiliation.
They're going to be so incredibly screwed if Ukraine ever manages to take out the Omsk refinery
pokes around on Google Maps
It looks like there's a fuel station ("Нефтемаркет") in Bogomyagkovo, Zabaykalsky Krai, Russia, 200 km down the road from Chita. I don't know if it has fuel available presently, but there's a review from two years ago, and it sounds like it was operational at that time:
Gas stations from the Soviet era, prices out of this world. They take advantage of the fact that this stretch of highway is practically deserted.
Vlad and his wife were driving home from Vladivostok, where they had collected a newly bought car,
Yowza. Can we assume from the location that it was a used car from Japan? How badly is the Russian economy fucked when it's more economical to fly and then drive almost 10,000km to get a car, rather than buy one closer to St. Petersburg?
I'm thinking Vlad may also just be a magnet for bad life decisions.
"This is just like the time you flew halfway across the country to buy a car during a fucking fuel crisis, Vlad!" will be added to the long list of things his wife's had to put up with.
Russia is about to experience an economic collapse, pretty sure.
Putin can simply withdraw and stop the pain, start rebuilding
Do something about your dictaster in cheese.