Petrol is running short in Russia. Ukrainian strikes have reduced Russia’s oil refining capacity by a reported 30 per cent. Restrictions at the pumps are being felt by ordinary Russians who are struggling to get enough fuel to run their cars. It is a reminder to a population that generally prefers to shrug off such signs (and certainly prefers not to risk time in prison by complaining about the war), that Putin’s plans for victory in Ukraine remain unrealised, and carry a cost.  

It’s just one of the problems Putin is facing this winter as the war approaches its fifth anniversary.

Vladimir Putin’s murderous drive to rebuild the Russian empire—at least in part—has run on oil. Rising energy prices in the 2000s helped Putin to consolidate his popularity when, newly elected, he presided over rising living standards. That new confidence in turn led to a desire among the Russian leadership to march back onto the world stage: in some cases, literally march.  

Without the oil prices as they have been in the last 20 years, there would have been no Russian military campaign in Georgia, Syria or Ukraine. To admit petrol is running short is, for a strongman leader, to admit a weakness. 

Petrol rationing is significant and not just because of the frustration it will cause (although the authorities seem to have been smart enough to make sure that motorists in Moscow and Saint Petersburg will not be subject to the restrictions — it’s the provinces, including some parts of Siberia, where the measures have been introduced). 

It is also something that symbolically strikes deeper. 

For the older generation, rationing is inevitably associated with economic failure in the late Soviet period. The collapse of the economy initially meant shortages and corresponding queues for even basic goods. It turned out to be more than that: the collapse of the system.  

Putin himself is of that generation. He famously recalled hard times in Saint Petersburg in the 1990s where he set out in his car in the hope of earning a few roubles as an informal cab driver. At least he could get the petrol. 

Car ownership soared after the end of communism. For younger generations, it’s an expression of personal freedom in a country where there are vanishingly few—so the associations for them will be equally unwelcome.      

That generation has also suffered more than any other on the battlefield, paying with their lives in a war to reclaim territory lost by a Soviet power that fell before they were born. 

And while, of course, Putin tries to hide the real cost of what he calls his “Special Military Operation’ in Ukraine, he doesn’t always succeed.

There was a recent reminder of when Russia’s official statistics agency, Rosstat, was hacked—and the hackers released data suggesting that more than 400,000 Russian soldiers had been killed in the war in Ukraine — far higher, of course, than any of the patchy official figures. 

The number is impossible to verify, and comes with the caveat that all numbers do in wartime. However, as Denis Kasyanchuk, economics editor at the independent Russian news site  wrote “several factors suggest that the numbers could be reliable”. He further noted that the leaked number “is dozens of times greater than the number of Soviet citizens lost in the nine-year war in Afghanistan”.

And then there are the talks to end the war. 

The latest US-led talks between Russian and Ukrainian delegations in Abu Dhabi have produced plans for a prisoner exchange, described by US envoy Jared Kushner as the biggest of the war. But there was little sign of progress to end the fighting.

To understand why, you need to look to Moscow. On Tuesday, the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov gave us a clue. He’s not at the talks. That’s for less senior officials. Lavrov restated Moscow’s insistence that a broader European security architecture be agreed before a ceasefire.

On Thursday, US special envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law, arrived in Moscow for talks with Putin, a day after the talks wrapped up in Abu Dhabi. They will then fly to Dublin to speak to the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky.

Zelensky told reporters during his visit to Denmark: “We are all very cautious with this topic because nobody really understands 100 per cent what they [the Russians] want.”   

For an answer to that question, look no further than the Russian foreign ministry website, and the “treaty” with the United States it published in December 2021. “The United States of America shall undertake to prevent further eastward expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation,” is one of the clauses. 

Two months later, Russia escalated its war on Ukraine. Five years later, Putin still believes he can create a Europe in which he has a bigger say in security than Europeans themselves. 

While the US-sponsored negotiations continue, time is running out for Putin to make the most of Washington’s current, Kremlin sympathetic, approach to making peace. The Biden White House dismissed that “treaty” when it was published. A Democrat majority Congress might try to change President Trump’s course. 

We can expect Putin to spend the start of this winter seeking to end the war by redoubling efforts to bomb Ukraine into submission. But as long as Ukraine is able to hit Russia’s oil infrastructure, and raise the cost of Russia waging war, Putin will struggle to persuade his people that victory is near.