Russia’s answer to a wartime fuel crunch is as old-school as it gets: roll back environmental rules more than a decade and revive fuel so dirty it was banned in 2013.

Crisis Management or Regulatory U-Turn?

According to a draft decree seen by Russian business daily Kommersant, the government is weighing a plan to allow production and sale of gasoline and diesel as low as Euro‑2, along with Euro‑3 and Euro‑4, until July 2027.¹ Euro‑2 fuel, once standard, has been off the Russian market for over a decade.¹

Officials frame the move as an emergency tool to “saturate the domestic fuel market” and keep older or less advanced refineries running.¹ The draft would also open the door to importing low-spec gasoline exempt from Eurasian Economic Union technical regulations, further boosting supply.¹

Opposition Media: A Step Backward

Opposition outlets cast the plan as a symbol of systemic failure. The Insider bluntly reports: “The government intends to lower fuel standards to ‘Euro‑2’,” emphasizing that Euro‑2 allows sulfur content up to 500 mg per kg versus just 10 mg for Euro‑5.¹ Analysts cited there warn that while using minimally processed naphtha could add “hundreds of thousands of tons” of gasoline per month, such fuel “may be unsafe for modern vehicles.”¹

Meduza stresses the geopolitical backdrop: Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian oil facilities have turned a chronic market tightness into a full-blown nationwide fuel crisis.² It notes this is already the second standards rollback after a 2025 step down to Euro‑3, suggesting short-term fixes are becoming a habit rather than a last resort.²

Shared Alarm, Different Emphasis

Both opposition sources agree the measure could ease shortages at the margin but won’t fully replace lost refinery output — and will come at an environmental and technical cost.¹² Where the government sees a temporary lifeline, its critics see something closer to a controlled regression: a petrostate forced to dig into its own past to keep the pumps running.