The day began with reports of overnight Ukrainian strikes on power plants and refineries in Russia’s Kostroma and Volgograd regions — one of the country’s biggest power plants went up in flames, along with a Lukoil refinery. Reuters also reported that after a Ukrainian drone hit the Black Sea port of Tuapse on 2 November, fuel exports were halted and the local refinery shut down.
According to SBU chief Vasyl Malyuk, Ukraine’s Defence Forces have hit Russian oil refineries nearly 160 times since the start of 2025. He says the strikes have created a fuel shortfall of up to 20% inside Russia, knocked out 37% of its refining capacity, caused shortages in 57 regions and forced the Kremlin to ban petrol exports until the end of the year.
And some Russians are feeling it more than others. One group particularly affected is the country’s car-owner lobby — people who have long treated cars as a status symbol, following the old Soviet dream of “a flat — a car — a dacha.” Keeping up that lifestyle is suddenly getting a lot harder.
The Swiss newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung reports that in October, drivers in Vladivostok and Novosibirsk took to the streets to protest a sharp hike in the recycling fee — essentially a scrap tax — for disposing of old cars. With oil and gas revenues shrinking, the Kremlin seems to have found a new source of income: ordinary people. If you’re not fighting in the war, the logic goes, you can pay for those who are.
“There’s no point in propping up Russia’s fourth-rate car industry, unless we’re talking about assembling foreign models in Russia. And there are no real businesses that actually recycle old cars. Turning in scrap metal is simply state robbery,” the paper writes.
Demand for Russian-made cars remains predictably low. The market is now flooded with Chinese models, but they’re too pricey for most buyers — and scepticism toward Chinese cars runs deep. So, when they can, Russians still try to get their hands on European cars, or simply keep their old ones on the road.
Taxi drivers in Russia are now being told what they can and can’t drive. Under the banner of supporting “domestic production,” they’re being pushed toward Chinese and Russian brands — and away from European cars. The result: fewer drivers on the road and rising fares.
“Loyalty to European brands has nothing to do with loyalty to Europe or Western values — it’s just the habit of buying quality products made by capitalist economies. During the wave of ‘patriotic enthusiasm,’ it was common to see an expensive German car sporting a sticker that said ‘To Berlin!’ It was a joke that perfectly exposed the inability to connect logic with reality,” Neue Zürcher Zeitung notes.
Earlier, The Ukrainian Week reported that Ukrainian strikes have left petrol stations across parts of Russia empty, forcing drivers to wait in long lines to get fuel. The crunch is most severe in remote areas — particularly the Far East and southern regions — where drivers are being forced to switch to more expensive grades as A-95 petrol disappears from pumps. Meanwhile, wholesale petrol prices have surged 54% since the start of the year, hitting record levels.
“Enforced patriotism is starting to clash with reality. The Russian government clearly needs money fast to pay for its ‘special military operation,’ and it’s squeezing it from whoever it can — including drivers. But people who depend on their cars for work and daily life can’t be squeezed forever. So it’s fair to expect reactions no one in the Kremlin has planned for,” the outlet writes.
