Putin mutiny as Russians fume over crippling petrol crisis – ‘Fiasco!’ | World | News

Vladimir Putin is facing unprecedented criticism today as Russia lurches into chaos over worsening petrol queues. Ukraine’s strikes on oil refineries are tightening a noose for the dictator with dire warnings of economic collapse and social unrest.

Russians are lining up for many hours and even days at a time in some regions to fill their cars due to chronic fuel shortages. Fights are breaking out in the Soviet-style queues and bribes are being paid to secure black market fuel as the war powerfully impacts Putin’s own people. With Putin’s poll ratings slumping, one ruling party lawmaker Andrey Gurulev, a reservist army general, declared: “It’s a fiasco.” Putin’s strict “management system” was in “collapse,” he warned. Another MP Vyacheslav Markhayev — a former police general who says Russian is “on the brink of a social explosion” – raged: “Why can’t Russia, which produces hundreds of millions of tons of oil, provide its own people with fuel?

“We export resources, but inside, the filling stations are empty. Why are we still shipping mineral resources and resources to the West and NATO? Where’s the logic?”

He accused Putin of leaving ordinary Russians vulnerable to Ukrainian drone strikes, making them unsafe by pursuing his endless war.

“Why can’t the government ensure the national security of the country’s population from enemy attacks, yet finds time and resources to fight its own population through [its] campaign to prevent internet access, free communications, and accurate information?”

He demanded “prosecutorial investigations, real resignations, and criminal cases against those whose actions, or inaction, have driven people to despair.”

Until the Putin regime “admits its mistakes and miscalculations, unrest will mount.”

Communist MP Nina Ostanina claimed the Kremlin was covering up the cause of the oil shortage, which is linked to Putin’s war. She warned the farming sector will be savaged by fuel shortages.

“The country could be left without bread, which in the conditions of international sanctions is tantamount to death,” she said.

Fury is also growing because Putin’s officials across Russia are reportedly allowed to queue-jump to fill up with fuel, with lines of cars snaking for many miles on highways. Even far-flung cities like Chita in Siberia – 3,700 miles from the war zone – are suffering chronic queues.

In Black Sea resort Anapa, police and Cossack warriors are stationed at filling stations due to fights.

Russians are warned of months of fuel shortages to come unless Putin agrees to peace talks in the war, which he resolutely refuses to do.

“The most alarming thing is that the crisis is just beginning,” said Finam strategist Yaroslav Kabakov. “The peak of seasonal demand traditionally falls in August-September, and signs of a shortage and accelerating prices have already appeared in June.”

Russians are finding an ingenious way to cheat the rationing of fuel at filling stations – but could face jail.

Footage shows a woman clinging onto the petrol up nozzle as men refuse to allow her to fill jerry cans.

Some drivers are making holes in their vehicles’ bodywork to imitate fuel filler flaps. They use the fake hole to secretly fill one or several cans or canisters, cheating the Putin regime’s curbs on petrol buying.

Footage caught a man cheating the system on a forecourt in the Siberian city of Barnaul, filling up through a fake fuel filler.

In Kolomna, outside Moscow, a driver was filmed refuelling his Toyota Camry – then audaciously pouring petrol into a plastic shopping bag. Some commenters claimed the bag concealed a can that he was filling.

Other Russians seek to bribe filling station staff with cash payments to allow them to buy extra fuel. Reports say the motorists could be charged under laws leading to up to seven years in jail.

Polls in Russia artificially inflate Putin’s ratings, but his support is slumping more than at any time during the war.