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By Ellie Cook
Senior Defense Reporter
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Russia has imposed fuel restrictions in at least eight Russian regions after fresh Ukrainian strikes on the country's oil sector on the eve of a new round of U.S.-brokered peace talks between Moscow and Kyiv.
A Ukrainian drone struck the Kirishi oil refinery southeast of the city of St Peterburg, sparking a fire at the facility, Leningrad regional Governor Aleksander Drozdenko said on Monday.
Ukraine has doggedly targeted Russia's oil refineries in recent months as Kyiv tries to make it more expensive for Russia to continue its war effort, the Kremlin's full-scale invasion closing in on its fifth anniversary.
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Russia is a major oil exporter and relies on this revenue to keep its economy going, especially because it dedicates so much of government spending to the military. Russia's army also needs fuel to make sure it can keep its tanks, armored vehicles and logistics operations in south and eastern Ukraine running.
Kyiv says its strikes on oil facilities are a fair response to Russia's missile and drone attacks on Ukraine, the country battered by Russia's sustained strikes on Ukrainian energy infrastructure while Kyiv struggles to source more vital air defenses interceptor missiles.
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U.S. energy officials last year said the Kirishi site, operated by Russian energy company Surgutneftegaz, would likely be able to pump out up to 400,000 barrels of oil each day, making it Russia's second-largest refining facility.
Ukraine's military has said the refinery has a capacity of around 20 million tonnes of crude oil per year and supplies Russia's military.
Several Russian oil companies are placing restrictions on fuel sales, Drozdenko said.
Motorists will be restricted to buying 30 liters of gasoline in Leningrad cities like St Petersburg, the governor said. Diesel purchases are capped at 50 liters.
Similar limits apply in the northwestern Karelia region. Russian media also reported restrictions on gas stations operated by Russian energy giant Rosneft in the Krasnoyarsk, Zabaykalsky, Arkhangelsk, Penza, Novosibirsk and Buryatia regions.
"I am fully aware that these restrictions may cause inconvenience," Karelia Governor Artur Parfenchikov, said in a post to messaging app Telegram. "However, under the current circumstances, these steps are necessary."
Russian officials imposed sweeping limits on fuel consumption in Russia and Moscow-controlled regions of Ukraine in June, following the next month by an export ban on diesel.
The temporary measure was repeatedly extended as Ukrainian attacks on refineries continued. In late June, Russian President Vladimir Putin made a rare acknowledgment of the impact of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, saying Russian consumers had been forced to join long queues at gas stations and nodded to shortages of specific types of fuel.
But in mid-October, Putin downplayed the impact of Ukraine's campaign, saying Kyiv had not struck any "particularly ​significant" sites. Roughly two weeks earlier, the Kremlin leader said the attacks had cost Russia around 1 percent of its entire gross domestic product.
Ukraine has claimed that it had "decommissioned" 15 of Russia's 38 main refineries, and forced another dozen to slash their production of oil products.
Trackers show Kyiv has hit at least 29 Russian oil refineries in 2026, including several strikes on the Kirishi facility. The refinery reportedly halted processing after Ukrainian drone attacks in March, and Kyiv said it caused a fire at the site in late August.
Russia will eke out its diesel export ban until the end of 2026, although some companies will be allowed to send fuel out of the country as part of Moscow's diesel deal with the U.S., Reuters reported last month.
President Donald Trump said in mid-October Russia would immediately release an initial 300,000 tonnes of diesel to the global market, including American consumers, followed by 500,000 tonnes in November, amid sky-high prices at the pump in the U.S.
Another 1 million tonnes would later become available, Trump said.
The news was met with outrage from both sides of the aisle and was heavily criticized by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who called the agreement "absolutely terrible" and a gift to Putin.
Russia's Defense Ministry said on Monday it had hit electrical substations in Ukraine's Dnipropetrovsk, Cherkasy and Vinnytsia regions, as well as around the country's capital city overnight. Ukrainian authorities said around half of Ukraine's regions had lost access to electricity after the attacks.
"Right now, many of our cities and communities are facing a very difficult situation with power, water, and heating supplies due to Russian strikes," Zelensky said on Monday.
Ukrainian and Russian negotiators will meet on Tuesday in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, for several days of talks pushed by the U.S. on a potential peace deal.
The last round of peace talks took place in February, shortly before the U.S. launched its war against Iran.
Trump said in an interview with CBS, aired Sunday, he believed the two countries were "close to making a deal," although there was "tremendous hatred" between Putin and Zelensky.
Trump, appearing to reference the issue of territory, said Ukraine would look a "little bit different" after a peace deal comes into force.
Neither Kyiv nor Moscow have signaled a willingness to compromise on their territorial demands, which have been the thorniest issue in ultimately unfruitful peace negotiations.
Russia claims to have annexed the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions of eastern Ukraine, although it doesn't fully control any of these territories.
Russia had seized Crimea, to the south of the mainland, from Ukraine in 2014. Moscow describes these areas as part of Russia but its grip on the annexed regions is not internationally recognized.
Ukraine has outright rejected giving up land it still controls to Russia, especially in the Donetsk region where Kyiv maintains many of its most important defenses.
Ukraine has long said its constitution bans ceding land to Russia, a move that would also be deeply unpopular with a Ukrainian public scarred by years of brutal warfare.
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Ben Kelly and Emma Lee-Sang
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