Most of Russia's territory faces fuel shortages – military expert

Ivan Tymochko, head of the Council of Reservists of the Ukrainian Ground Forces, announced this on Ukrainian television, according to an Ukrinform correspondent.

"Eighty-four percent — that's the main part of Russia suffering from shortages or disruptions in fuel supply," the military expert said.

According to him, in Russia, the population – including the agricultural sector – receives fuel from surplus reserves, meaning what remains after redistribution within the army.

"Of course, such a situation brings us closer to the cessation of hostilities," Tymochko said, commenting on Ukrainian forces' strikes against Russian fuel and energy facilities.

The expert stressed that Ukrainian forces are not simply systematically destroying key enemy targets but are carrying out a prioritization process to identify and strike the most critical ones.

Tymochko explained that after each strike, its effectiveness is analyzed: "When a refinery takes on additional load, the situation at the previously targeted facility is simultaneously monitored – how much they are restoring operations, how they are trying to reorient production. Then strikes are carried out on the key nodes of the system," he said.

According to him, this is extremely important because an oil refinery is a massive facility covering tens or even hundreds of hectares. Such industrial complexes are often dependent on specific key units or systems that sustain the entire production cycle – and these "are identified and destroyed," Tymochko said.

He also stressed that Ukrainian forces are targeting military infrastructure, as that is what serves as a resource for the Russian leadership.

"For the Russians, civilians are not a resource – they are merely a tool for implementing their plans. Their real resource is military infrastructure and the Russian army. That's the resource they use to wage aggression. Therefore, when we destroy that resource, we are directly contributing to speeding up the end of the war," the expert said.

Ukraine's General Staff earlier said that on the night of October 18-19, Ukrainian forces struck oil and gas processing plants in Russia's Samara and Orenburg regions, as well as a fuel depot in temporarily occupied Berdiansk, Zaporizhzhia region.