Ukraine’s offensive against Russia causes petrol panic across Central Asia

A Russian woman explained on camera what made her and a smiling, bearded man next to her drive to a petrol station in Kazakhstan.

“Simply to fill the tank,” she said in a viral video that explains new terms in today’s Russia: “fuel tourism” and “gas hunting”.

For most of this year, swarms of Ukrainian drones have been burning down Russian oil refineries and fuel depots from annexed Crimea to the Baltic to western Siberia, causing sky-high plumes of putrid smoke.

As Russian President Vladimir Putin refuses to resume peace talks, claiming that his forces “advance in all directions”, tens of millions of Russians face fuel shortages and hours-long queues at petrol stations – with occasional shouting and fist fights.

And those living in regions bordering Kazakhstan – including a string of urban centres along the Volga River, Russia’s most densely populated region – drive to Central Asia’s most oil-rich nation, often hundreds of kilometres, just to fill up.

Even though in late May the Kazakh government banned petrol exports, border guards report thwarting hundreds of attempts to smuggle fuel back to Russia in canisters, makeshift fuel tanks – or in giant fuel trucks.

But some industrious smugglers still make their way across the world’s second-longest land border that stretches 7,644km (4,750 miles) across the barren steppe, according to people interviewed for this article.

“There’s total contraband along the border,” Timur, a businessman in Almaty, Kazakhstan’s capital, told Al Jazeera. He withheld his last name for safety reasons.