Rosenberg: Shortage of petrol but not patriotism as Russians feel growing impact of war

To stay calm in the queue Lyubov is stroking her pet dog Agatha.

How does Lyubov view the fuel crisis?

“Everyone says there is a difficult situation in the country,” Lyubov tells me. “Everyone connects this to that situation.”

Before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 there were no drone attacks on Russian oil refineries – or on any facilities inside Russia. These strikes haven’t forced the Kremlin to U-turn. It’s continuing what it still calls the “special military operation”, Russia’s war on Ukraine.

To ease the crisis, Russia has begun importing petrol.

That is extraordinary for a country widely recognised as an energy superpower and one of the world’s leading exporters of crude oil.

To reduce the fuel shortage the government has also temporarily authorised the production and sale of lower-grade petrol, like Euro 2, which is faster to produce. Euro 2 contains up to 50 times more sulphur than modern Euro 5 and was banned in Russia in 2013.

It comes with a warning.

“For modern cars,” wrote the government newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta, “regular use of lower-grade petrol can increase the pressure on the fuel injector, spark plugs, oxygen sensors, the catalytic converter and soot filter. Euro 2 won’t kill an engine on one re-fuelling. But it sharply reduces the margin of safety.”

It’s not just the targeting of oil facilities which have brought the war home to Russians.

Ukrainian strikes on distribution centres of Wildberries, Russia’s equivalent of Amazon, are causing disruption to shoppers and economic pain for sellers.

This week President Vladimir Putin conceded that attacks on industrial facilities and infrastructure “do inflict damage; this is obvious. We understand this, we see it.”

But the Kremlin leader played down the problems.

“There are no critical consequences from such attacks. There have not been and cannot be.”

In other words, no need for panic.