Ukraine’s offensive against Russia causes petrol panic across Central Asia War-induced shortages set off cross-border fuel runs and deepen energy problems for Russia’s allies. A Russian woman explained on camera what made her and a smiling, bearded man next to her drive to a petrol station in Kazakhstan.
“Simply to fill the tank,” she said in a viral video that explains new terms in today’s Russia: “fuel tourism” and “gas hunting”. Recommended Storieslist of 4 items - list 1 of 4‘Long-range sanctions’: Ukraine hopes strikes cause Russia fear and losses - list 2 of 4‘New level of danger’: Drone incidents scare Europe amid Russia-Ukraine war - list 3 of 4Russian expert warns of impending social crisis as Ukraine death toll rises - list 4 of 4How China and Russia could hobble Trump’s plans to isolate Iran For most of this year, swarms of Ukrainian drones have been burning down Russian oil refineries and fuel depots from annexed Crimea to the Baltic to western Siberia, causing sky-high plumes of putrid smoke.
As Russian President Vladimir Putin refuses to resume peace talks, claiming that his forces “advance in all directions”, tens of millions of Russians face fuel shortages and hours-long queues at petrol stations – with occasional shouting and fist fights.
And those living in regions bordering Kazakhstan – including a string of urban centres along the Volga River, Russia’s most densely populated region – drive to Central Asia’s most oil-rich nation, often hundreds of kilometres, just to fill up. Even though in late May the Kazakh government banned petrol exports, border guards report thwarting hundreds of attempts to smuggle fuel back to Russia in canisters, makeshift fuel tanks – or in giant fuel trucks.
But some industrious smugglers still make their way across the world’s second-longest land border that stretches 7,644km (4,750 miles) across the barren steppe, according to people interviewed for this article. “There’s total contraband along the border,” Timur, a businessman in Almaty, Kazakhstan’s capital, told Al Jazeera.
He withheld his last name for safety reasons. Even though Kazakhstan boasts three giant, Soviet-era oil refineries, fuel prices in Kazakhstan increased by 15.6 percent this year, the UlusMedia website reported on July 10 . Only one of Kazakhstan’s neighbours, Turkmenistan, has large hydrocarbon reserves, but its autocratic leaders isolated the country from the rest of the region in the 1990s.
‘Deficit here for a long time’ Other Central Asian nations feel the ripple effect too – especially Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, resource-poor, mountainous nations that used to get up to 90 percent of their petrol from Russia. “They’ve been hurt the most,” Galiya Ibragimova, a Moldova-based expert on Central Asia with Carnegie Politika, which is headquartered in Berlin, told Al Jazeera.
Kyrgyzstan is a member of the Eurasian Economic Union, the free trade bloc of five former Soviet nations dominated by Russia and the Kremlin’s political decisions. Tajikistan is not a member of the group, but it bought discounted Russian fuel as “payment for political loyalty, not because Putin is so kind”, Ibragimova said.
A key source of petrol for Central Asia was Russia’s largest refinery in the city of Omsk in southwestern Siberia. But it stopped operating after Ukrainian drone attacks in early July that damaged a crude distillation unit. Around that time, Kyrgyzstan began regulating petrol prices and asked other ex-Soviet nations for help to “ensure sustainable fuel supplies”.
Kyrgyz experts predict long-term problems at Russian refineries will take months or even years to fix. “Equipment for oil refineries is not a delivery from an online shop or a supermarket,” Kyrgyz energy expert Olzhas Baydildinov said in televised remarks.
“The deficit that has come is here for a long time.” The Kyrgyz government pledged to “provide at least a half” of Kyrgyzstan’s needs – but only after modernising the nation’s largest refinery, deputy energy minister Nasipbek Kerimov said in early July.
He did not specify how long it would take. By the middle of this month, Kyrgyz authorities said they had spent about $11.4m to subsidise petrol prices. China’s help in drilling Tajikistan is especially vulnerable because domestic oil processing amounts to 0.
5 percent of petrol consumed there. Drivers already face fuel shortages and limits of 20 litres per car at some petrol stations. “There are problems both in the [processing of oil] and in logistics,” deputy energy minister Daler Juma said in early July, when announcing that the government had amassed fuel reserves that would last “at least 60 days”.
In mid-August, he travelled to Tehran and signed a deal to provide 2.5 million tonnes of oil, petrol and diesel from Iran. With the help of experts from the giant state-owned China National Petroleum Corporation, Tajikistan has intensified the search for prospective oil fields.
By the end of this year, they are due to submit a report on seismic reconnaissance, a method of quickly assessing potential oil reserves. “Then, we will decide where we can start drilling,” Tajikistan’s chief geologist, Ilhomjon Oymukhammadzoda, told a news conference in early July.
Uzbekistan’s ‘reserves’ for winter Both Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan used to resell Russian petrol to neighbouring Uzbekistan, the regional economic powerhouse with a population of almost 39 million and half a dozen car manufacturing companies. As Uzbekistan processes its own oil into petrol satisfying about two-thirds of its needs, the rest usually comes from Russia.
But the new shortages have forced the government to start amassing a strategic reserve. “We have a separate plan for the fall and winter, we’ve created enough reserves. I can say with confidence that we have enough reserves for two or three months,” deputy energy minister, Umid Mamadaminov, said early last month.
Meanwhile, many Uzbek drivers are happy they switched their engines to run on compressed natural gas – even though huge gas tanks take up most of the boot. “I switched 15 years ago, saved a lot of money,” Azamat Tolipov, a taxi driver in the Uzbek capital, Tashkent, told Al Jazeera.
Regional governments are trying to find new sources of oil and gas, but the United States and Israeli war on Iran drives global prices up. “Central Asian nations will convulsively look for new suppliers, but considering what’s going on in the Strait of Hormuz, even if they find an alternative, it will be more expensive,” analyst Ibragimova predicted.
Beijing seems to be the only power to benefit from the fuel crisis as sales of Chinese-made electric cars skyrocketed even before it unfolded. Electric car sales in Kazakhstan alone grew 36 times between 2022 and 2025, said the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, a Berlin-based think tank in last year’s report titled: “China has flooded Central Asia with electric cars”.