# OPEN LETTER: Putin, your oil is burning — and that is excellent news

> Mr. Putin, on June 26, 2026, you extended through end of 2027 the ban on exporting oil and petroleum products subject to the price cap imposed by the G7 and the EU. This measure, initially put in place in February 2023, is meant to read as a sovereign act of retaliation. But read it differently: it is an admission that your oil war machine is in trouble, that your domestic mark

- Author: Maxime Marquette
- Publisher: MadMax (https://mad-max.co)
- Section: Open letter
- Published: 2026-06-29
- Canonical URL: https://mad-max.co/en/article/lettre-ouverte-poutine-votre-petrole-brule-et-c-est-une-excellente-nouvelle

## Introduction: a letter to the man who believed energy would be his shield

### Vladimir Putin, president of a federation running out of fuel

Mr. **Putin**, on **June 26, 2026**, you extended through **end of 2027** the ban on exporting oil and petroleum products subject to the **price cap** imposed by the **G7** and the **EU**. This measure, initially put in place in **February 2023**, is meant to read as a sovereign act of retaliation. But read it differently: it is an admission that your oil war machine is in trouble, that your domestic market is short of fuel, and that Ukrainian drones have reached something far more precious than tanks — your refineries.

I am writing you this letter not with malice, but with clarity. The truth is that your decision of **June 26** is less an act of strength than an admission of fragility. When a government bans its own petroleum exports, it is not because it is in a position of strength — it is because it lacks fuel for its own trucks, its own tanks, its own power plants. The war in Ukraine is costing you far more than you calculated.

### The Russian oil paradox

There is something historically ironic about your situation, **Mr. Putin**. You built your power on oil and gas. You used these resources as instruments of geopolitical blackmail for two decades — cutting gas deliveries to Ukraine in the depths of winter, threatening **Europe** with shortages to deter it from supporting your invaded neighbor. And now, Ukrainian drones have reduced **Russian gasoline production by 25 percent** compared to **June 2025**. The weapon has turned.

Your own Ministry of Energy acknowledged, **for the first time**, that Ukrainian attacks are "directly responsible" for domestic fuel market difficulties. That is not a trivial statement. It is a rhetorical capitulation that tells the truth of the situation: Ukraine is striking at the heart of your war economy, and you cannot hide it.

*I remember when we were told that Russia had an insurmountable advantage thanks to its energy resources. Two years of Ukrainian drones over refineries have reduced gasoline production by 25 percent. The energy weapon Putin so proudly brandished is now partially turned back against him. There is a poetic justice in that reversal — even if it was not planned that way.*

## The reality behind the export ban

### The state of Russia's domestic market

Mr. **Putin**, here is what your subjects know but what your state media is minimizing. The **Moscow Times** reported on **June 24, 2026** that your government is studying a **total ban on diesel exports** to stabilize the domestic market. This means that Russian trucks, farmers' tractors in **Siberia**, hospital generators are running short of diesel. Fuel rationing has already reached remote regions, and occupied **Crimea** is running dry.

**Crimea**, that peninsula you annexed in **2014** with such fanfare, declared a **state of emergency on June 26, 2026** due to fuel shortages and power outages. Your occupation authorities had to admit it publicly. This is not the victory you promised your compatriots when you dragged them into this adventure.

### The price cap — a measure that bites

You denounce the **oil price cap** imposed by the **G7** and the **EU** on Russian petroleum as an illegal and hostile measure. But the figures tell a different story. This cap — initially set at **60 dollars per barrel** for Russian crude — has effectively reduced Russia's oil revenues, even if enforcement has not been perfect. Combined with Ukrainian strikes on refineries and the difficulties your shadow fleet faces in maintaining its insurance, your oil machine is under pressure from every direction.

The extension of your export ban through **end of 2027** is presented as a sovereign countermove. In reality, it confirms that you need all the oil you can produce to feed your own war economy — and that you do not have enough.

*When Putin launched his invasion, his economists assured him that oil revenues would sustain the war economy for years. They had not factored in Ukrainian drones over refineries, nor the cumulative pressure of sanctions and price caps. The arrogance of the initial calculations makes the current fragility all the more revealing.*

## What you did not anticipate, Mr. Putin

### The 40-day Ukrainian strike campaign

The **SBU** authorized a **40-day strike campaign** against Russian energy infrastructure. **Zelensky** confirmed strikes on oil refineries in **Krasnodar Krai** and **Yaroslavl Oblast**. This is not random — it is a deliberate strategy aimed at degrading Russia's capacity to finance and fuel its war machine. Every refinery struck means less fuel for your tanks, less revenue for your military budgets, less capacity to sustain the pace of a costly war of attrition.

**Russian gasoline production** fell **25 percent** in one year. That figure, acknowledged by your own government, costs you more than you are willing to admit. The fuel lines at gas stations in certain Russian regions, rising fuel prices, shortages in **Siberia** and **Crimea** — all documented, even if your state media ignores it.

### Ukraine turning your own weapons against you

For years, **Mr. Putin**, you used energy as a geopolitical weapon. Ukraine has turned that logic around: it strikes your energy infrastructure to impose on you the same deprivations you inflicted on it. Every time you bombed Ukrainian power plants, you created a doctrine. Ukraine is now applying it against you. It is painful, but it is strategic reciprocity — and you cannot complain without acknowledging the origin of that logic.

The **Guardian** reported on **June 28, 2026** that you yourself admitted that Ukrainian strikes are responsible for Russian fuel shortages. That is an extraordinary admission for someone claiming to lead a victorious "special military operation." Victories do not produce domestic fuel shortages.

*There is a cruel truth that price caps and Ukrainian drones together have revealed: the Russian war economy was less robust than it appeared. Russia can absorb sanctions — it has been doing so since 2022. But the combination of sanctions and direct strikes on production infrastructure is a different equation. And Putin is beginning to acknowledge it publicly.*

## The Western response you did not expect

### The G7 and EU maintaining the pressure

Mr. **Putin**, you bet on Western fatigue. You wagered that liberal democracies, sensitive to electoral and economic pressures, would not hold over the long term. On that particular bet, you have lost. The **G7** is maintaining its sanctions. The **EU** is extending them for a full year. The **oil price cap** remains in force. And weapons deliveries to Ukraine continue, despite all your efforts to discourage them.

The **G7 summit at Evian** in June 2026 put Ukraine back at the top of the allies' agenda. President **Trump** — whom you no doubt hoped would be more accommodating — declared that **Zelensky** was fighting "**pretty well**" and expressed his being impressed by Ukraine's battlefield results. This is not the diplomatic trajectory you had planned.

### Accumulating sanctions and advancing isolation

The extension of European sanctions for a full year — a first — signals an institutional durability you may not have anticipated. The **European Union** has overcome its internal divisions on the Ukrainian question. The countries most economically exposed to relations with Russia have accepted significant costs. This solidarity, imperfect but real, is your most enduring diplomatic failure.

The **Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression** against Ukraine, signed by **36 states**, is establishing itself in **The Hague**. International judicial isolation is advancing in parallel with economic isolation. Your legacy will not be the imperial greatness you sought — it will be a list of sanctions and indictments.

*Putin bet on Western division, on democratic fatigue, on Trump as an involuntary ally. Each of those bets has partially misfired. Sanctions are lasting. Ukraine is holding. Trump is complimenting Zelensky. And Russian gasoline production is down 25 percent. That is the balance sheet of a strategist who underestimated his enemies and overestimated his own forces.*

## What this crisis says about the future

### The energy attrition war

The battle playing out around Russian energy resources is at the heart of a broader economic war of attrition. Ukraine strikes refineries. The **G7** caps prices. Sanctions limit imports of technology needed to modernize oil infrastructure. Each additional layer of pressure complicates the maintenance and development of Russia's energy sector over the long term.

Foreign investment in Russian hydrocarbons has collapsed since **2022**. Western drilling and extraction technologies are no longer available. The most productive oil fields are aging without the equipment to maintain them. In this context, the export ban you have just extended, **Mr. Putin**, is not a display of power — it is scarcity management.

### A Russia growing ever more dependent on China

The forced reorientation of your oil exports toward **China** and **India**, at heavily discounted prices, represents a growing dependence on partners who treat you as a subordinate supplier, not as an equal strategic partner. **Beijing** buys your oil with substantial discounts. **Delhi** does too. You no longer dictate the terms — you accept them, because you have no other choice.

This dependence on **China** is not without risk for **Russia** in the long term. **Beijing** has its own interests, and they do not always align with yours. Russia is moving from being an autonomous energy great power to becoming an economic appendage of **China** — and that is a direct consequence of your Ukraine war.

*Russia, the world's foremost gas power, dependent on China to move its oil at knockdown prices. This is not the sovereign great power Putin sold to his compatriots. It is the reality of a catastrophic strategic choice — a war that has transformed an energetically dominant state into a subordinate supplier to a China that has no obligation of loyalty toward Moscow.*

## The G7 price cap: an economic weapon that works

### How the price cap reshapes Russian revenues

The **G7 price cap** — set at **60 dollars per barrel** for Russian oil — is one of the most significant economic innovations in the Western response to the war. Its mechanism is elegant: shipping companies, insurers, and service providers from **G7** countries may only participate in transporting Russian oil if it is sold below this threshold. Any transaction above the cap excludes Western actors — which represents a substantial share of global shipping and maritime insurance capacity.

The effects are real, even if difficult to quantify precisely. **Russia** has had to build a "**shadow fleet**" of aging, uninsured tankers to circumvent the mechanism — with all the environmental and operational risks that entails. Several oil spill incidents have already been attributed to these aging vessels. And the additional cost of circumventing the cap — logistics, insurance, infrastructure — cuts into the actual revenues **Putin** can reinject into his war economy.

*Russia's shadow fleet — rusting tankers sailing without insurance — is a perfect metaphor for the Russian economy in 2026. Brilliant on the surface, decaying underneath. This is not a victorious war economy. It is a survival economy improvising makeshift solutions while its real capabilities erode.*

## Strikes on refineries: a militarized economic strategy

### Ukraine targeting the arteries of the Russian economy

**Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries** — in **Krasnodar Krai**, in **Yaroslavl Oblast**, in the **Moscow** region — are not simple military operations. They are strategic decisions aimed at degrading the productive capacity of a war economy. Russian refineries produce the fuel that powers tanks, aircraft, and military logistics trucks. By degrading them, Ukraine creates **cascading shortages** that complicate every aspect of the Russian war effort.

The result is visible: **fuel rationing in Siberia**, **shortages in occupied Crimea**, a **25 percent fall in gasoline production** in June **2026** compared to pre-war levels. **Putin** himself acknowledged — a rare thing — that Ukrainian strikes are contributing to the shortages. This involuntary transparency is the best proof that the Ukrainian strategy is working.

*Putin admitted that Ukrainian strikes on refineries are causing fuel shortages. That is not a propaganda victory — it is a strategic admission. The Kremlin never acknowledges its failures unless forced to by visible reality. When Putin admits that Ukraine is effectively striking his economic rear, it means the situation is far worse than he is saying publicly.*

## Europe's energy alternatives: a lasting transformation

### Europe post-Russian gas dependence

In **2021**, **Europe** imported roughly **40 percent of its natural gas** from **Russia**. By June **2026**, that dependence has collapsed. **American LNG**, **Norwegian gas**, Mediterranean interconnections, and the acceleration of **renewable energy** have restructured European energy supply in under four years. What seemed impossible in **2022** — getting by without Russian gas without economic catastrophe — has been accomplished, at the cost of considerable effort and high costs, but accomplished nonetheless.

This transformation is structurally irreversible. The **LNG** terminals built in emergency conditions in **Germany**, the **Netherlands**, and **Italy** constitute a permanent new infrastructure. Long-term contracts signed with alternative suppliers extend over decades. A return to Russian gas, even if the war ended tomorrow, is politically and economically unlikely. **Europe** has learned its lesson — and it is not going back.

*The Russian energy weapon was defused by Europe itself, through real economic sacrifices and courageous political decisions. This may be one of the most important strategic transformations of the decade — and it would never have happened without Russian aggression. Putin accelerated exactly what he was trying to prevent: European energy independence.*

## Conclusion: your energy gamble has failed

### The bill for aggression

Mr. **Putin**, your energy gamble has failed. The weapon you brandished for two decades — Europe's dependence on Russian gas and oil — has turned. **Europe** has diversified. **Ukrainian drones** have cut your production. The **price cap** has eaten into your revenues. And now you are extending your own export ban because you lack the fuel to power your war economy.

### A lesson for autocrats everywhere

This letter also speaks to others — the leaders who look at Russia and calculate whether the same strategy of energy intimidation, territorial aggression, or economic blackmail might work for them. Ukraine's and the West's response to your war demonstrates that these strategies have limits. That the resilience of democracies is greater than autocrats presume. And that economic weapons can, in time, turn against those who wield them. That is the most important lesson of your **June 26, 2026**.

*Mr. Putin, you launched this war with one conviction: that the West depended too much on your energy to resist. That conviction was wrong. You underestimated the willingness of democracies to pay a price for their values. You underestimated Ukrainian resilience. And you underestimated the capacity of Ukrainian engineers, decision-makers, and soldiers to strike where it hurts — in your refineries, in your space antennas, in your war economy. That is the lesson of June 2026.*

**By Maxime Marquette, columnist**

## Columnist's transparency note

### Editorial stance

I am not a journalist but a **columnist and analyst**. My expertise lies in observing and analysing the geopolitical, economic and strategic dynamics that shape our world. My work is to take political strategies apart, to understand global economic movements, to put the decisions of international actors in context and to offer analytical perspectives on the changes that are redefining our societies.

I do not claim the cold objectivity of traditional journalism, which stops at reporting facts. **I claim analytical clarity**, rigorous interpretation and a deep understanding of the complex issues that concern us all. My role is to give meaning to the facts, to place them in their historical and strategic context, and to offer a critical reading of events.

### Method and sources

This text keeps the basic distinction between **verified facts and interpretive analysis**. The rule never changes: a factual claim is published only when a verifiable source supports it, and the sources this article actually used are listed under **Sources**, never here.

**Primary source families** used by the publication, when the story has them: official statements from governments and international institutions, public statements by political leaders, reports from intergovernmental organisations, dispatches from recognised international news agencies.

**Secondary source families**: specialised publications, internationally recognised news media, analyses from established research institutions, reports from industry organisations.

When an article cites statistical, economic or geopolitical data, it comes from the institutions that produce it (intergovernmental organisations, central banks, national statistics offices), and the exact institution is named under **Sources**.

### Nature of the analysis

The analyses, interpretations and perspectives in the analytical sections of this article are a **critical, contextual synthesis** based on the information available, the trends observed and the expert comments cited in the sources consulted.

My role is to interpret these facts, to set them in the context of today's geopolitical and economic dynamics, and to give them a coherent meaning within the larger story of the changes shaping our time. These analyses reflect expertise built through continuous observation of international affairs and an understanding of the strategic mechanisms that drive global actors.

This article describes a documented state of affairs on its publication date, not a prediction: later developments may shift its outlook. No update is promised in advance; when an article is corrected or completed, the change is dated in the text.

## Sources

### Primary sources

- [S&P Global Energy — Putin extends Russian oil ban tied to G7, EU price cap through 2027 — June 26, 2026](https://www.spglobal.com/energy/en/news-research/latest-news/crude-oil/062626-putin-extends-russian-oil-ban-tied-to-g7-eu-price-cap-through-2027)

- [The Moscow Times — Russian Government Weighs Total Ban on Diesel Exports — June 24, 2026](https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2026/06/24/russian-government-weighs-total-ban-on-diesel-exports-a93086)

- [The Guardian — Putin admits Ukrainian strikes driving Russian fuel shortages — June 28, 2026](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jun/28/putin-admits-ukrainian-strikes-driving-russian-fuel-shortages)

### Secondary sources

- [Euromaidan Press — Russia's fuel rationing reaches Siberia as occupied Crimea runs dry — June 23, 2026](https://euromaidanpress.com/2026/06/23/russia-fuel-rationing-siberia-crimea-dry/)

- [The Guardian — Ukraine war briefing: Russian-occupied Crimea declares emergency — June 27, 2026](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jun/27/ukraine-war-briefing-russian-occupied-crimea-declares-emergency-as-zelenskyys-forces-step-up-attacks)

- [Kyiv Independent — Ukraine struck oil refineries in Russia's Krasnodar Krai and Yaroslavl Oblast — June 28, 2026](https://kyivindependent.com/ukraine-war-latest-ukraine-struck-oil-refineries-in-russias-krasnodar-krai-and-yaroslavl-oblast-zelensky-says/)

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Source: Maxime Marquette, MadMax. When citing, name the author and link https://mad-max.co/en/article/lettre-ouverte-poutine-votre-petrole-brule-et-c-est-une-excellente-nouvelle