Putin’s Crisis Spirals With Grim New Rationing Blow

Alexander Kazakov / Via Reuters Vladimir Putin’s fuel crisis has taken another grim turn as Ukraine’s drone strikes on Russian oil refineries choke supplies.

President Donald Trump implored his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky, to stop the blitzes on Moscow’s diesel-producing infrastructure because global energy supplies have already been strained by his own war in Iran, the Financial Times reported earlier this week.

The Ukrainian president, however, has clearly ignored Trump, as strikes have continued.

So much so, in fact, that a growing number of regions in Russia have reintroduced fuel rationing measures amid shortages of gasoline and diesel, the Moscow Times reports.

The moves follow Ukrainian drone attacks on three major Russian oil refineries in Moscow, Samara, and Ufa over the past three days.

Ukraine’s military claims those strikes and others have knocked out more than 45 percent of Russia’s refining capacity.

In the Kaluga region, southwest of Moscow, the governor announced the return of an odd-even system based on vehicle license plate numbers, along with a ban on sales into portable canisters.

“The lines [at gas stations] are back.

This causes reasonable frustration,” Governor Vladislav Shapsha wrote on Telegram.

In Siberia’s Zabaikalsky region, authorities capped sales at 15 liters, or about 4 gallons, per vehicle for two common gasoline grades across 48 gas stations.

The region’s fuel reserves stood at 17,000 metric tons, enough to last just 20 days.

Officials there stressed that 106 of the region’s 249 operating gas stations were still selling fuel without restrictions.

The squeeze isn’t anything new for regular Russians.

Authorities in the Leningrad region, which surrounds St.