Behind Russian Lines

Nina Khrushcheva
Nina Khrushcheva, granddaughter of Nikita Khrushchev, speaks at The Cambridge Union in Cambridge, England, May 2026. Photo: Nordin Catic/Getty Images for The Cambridge Union
Julia Ioffe
July 9, 2026

The mood in Russia, it seems, is turning very, very dark, very, very quickly. The country, a petrostate and one of the top oil producers in the world, is in the grip of a gasoline shortage. Miles-long traffic jams are forming at gas stations, where desperate Russians are getting into physical altercations, having meltdowns, and often not getting any gas. In the meantime, Crimea is increasingly cut off from mainland Russia—its only land connection, after all, is to Ukraine—and stranded tourists are sending desperate messages, pleading for help getting home. All of this is the work of Ukrainian drones, which have been hammering Russian oil refineries, taking nearly a third of them offline.