The decision will come into force on April 1.
According to Novak, the purpose of this measure is to stabilize prices and ensure priority supplies to the domestic market. The official reason was given as “turbulence in the global oil and petroleum products market caused by the crisis in the Middle East.”
According to the propaganda publication TASS, the ban will last until July 31.
The Moscow Times noted that the decision to ban was made after a series of drone attacks on Russian oil refineries, as a result of which at least three of them stopped producing fuel, including two in the past week.
In February, after an attack by a UAV, the Volgograd refinery with a capacity of 13 million tons, which is one of the largest in Russia, stopped producing gasoline. On March 21, after a drone strike, the Saratov Oil Refinery stopped processing oil; in 2024, the enterprise processed 5.8 million tons of oil (2.2% of the total Russian volume). And on the night of March 26, Kirishinefteorgsintez in the Leningrad region, the second largest oil refinery in the Russian Federation, came under attack. According to Reuters sources, both main refinery units were damaged, and the time frame for their restoration is unknown.
Context
In July 2025, Russia had already banned gasoline exports amid successful Ukrainian attacks on Russian oil refineries that led to fuel shortages.
The head of Ukrainian state Vladimir Zelensky noted that Ukraine is forced to answerdelivering strikes in response to Russian air attacks on Ukrainian energy facilities.
