Worldwide economies run on continuous and uninterruptable electricity and transportation fuels like the following:
- Jet fuel for the military and international airports, diesel fuel for trucks and construction equipment, different grades of gasoline for vehicles, and bunker fuel for all the ships arriving and departing from ports.
Ukraine and California are using proven ways to reduce the supply chain of those vital fuels.
- Ukraine uses military drones to reduce manufacturing capabilities of its enemy Russia.
- California uses political overregulation to effectively establish an unfriendly business environment for refineries to remain within the state to manufacture the transportation fuels demanded by the fourth largest economy in the world.
Ukraine is using drone attacks on Russian refineries to reduce the supply chain of transportation fuels demanded by the Russian military and its economy.
- Starting in August 2025, increased Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian oil refineries during the Russo-Ukrainian War caused widespread damage and a significant decrease in production of refined products across the Russian oil industry, leading to a fuel crisis in the country.
- According to a June 25, 2026, analysis by CNN, Ukraine had struck Russian oil facilities more than 300 times since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.
Russia is facing a severe nationwide fuel shortages caused by Ukrainian drone and missile strikes on its major oil refineries.
- Drivers across multiple regions, especially in Siberia and remote areas, have faced lines at gas stations lasting hours or even days.
- Local authorities have introduced purchase limits, such as capping vehicles at a single fill-per-day in regions like Altai and banning filling portable gas canisters in others.
- National average gasoline prices climbed over 18 percent since the beginning of the year,
California had more than 40 operating oil refineries in the early 1980s, but that number has dropped significantly due to industry consolidation and environmental transitions. The number of active refineries has fallen to seven, as the state overregulates its supply chain of transportation fuels.
- Recent closures of major in-state refineries, including facilities operated by Phillips 66 and Valero, have slashed local gasoline production and forced a heavier reliance on foreign imports
- California uses a unique specialized environmental gasoline blend and lacks pipeline connections to the rest of the nation, making it difficult to quickly backfill supply from domestic out-of-state sources.
- Ongoing conflict in the Middle East and restrictions tied to the Strait of Hormuz have constrained international crude shipments, raising replacement costs for refiners who import a significant portion of their crude oil feedstock.
- While overall inventory numbers sit near multi-year lows, analysts emphasize that extreme price spikes tend to induce “demand destruction” where high costs naturally curb consumption at local stations.
While California Gov. Gavin Newsom and policymakers remain oblivious that economies around the world run on transportation fuels for planes, ships, trucks, construction equipment, and vehicles, and the infrastructures that are supported by the products made from oil derivative extracted from raw crude oil, the state’s political policies are effectively supporting an impending collapse of California’s transportation fuel infrastructure.
Driven by adversarial state policies and aggressive litigation from activist groups, California’s domestic refining capacity has already been crippled, and has led to the most expensive transportation fuel in the nation for California residents.
- Jet fuel for the State’s 40 military and nine international airports, bunker fuel for all the ships arriving and departing from three of the busiest ports in America at Long Beach, Los Angeles, and Oakland, diesel fuel for trucks and construction equipment, and different grades of gasoline for vehicles.
- The more than 6,000 products in our daily materialistic lives that did not exist before the 1800s that are meeting the supply chain demands of today’s hospitals, airports, telecommunications, appliances, electronics, sanitation systems, heating, and ventilating systems to support current lifestyles.
California policymakers are unaware that crude oil by itself is useless black tar, unless entrepreneurial companies build a multi-billion-dollar refinery to break it down to produce various types of transportation fuels like, jet, diesel, gasoline, and bunker fuel for ships, and oil derivatives that are the basis of more than 6,000 products in our materialistic world.
The global population has surged to eight billion. This growth has been supported by the dramatic increase in the number of products and transportation fuels made from oil, and food production made possible by synthetic fertilizers, all of which did not exist before the 1800s.
Newsom has yet to shar publicly about all the money spent on wind turbines, solar panels, and battery storage, as the “renewable industry” can’t support the transportation fuels demands of various infrastructures of military airports, commercial airports, merchant ships moving products through various shipping ports, truck and construction equipment fuel demands, nor meet the demands for more than 6,000 products used by hospitals, airports, telecommunications, appliances, electronics, sanitation systems, heating, and ventilating systems to support current lifestyles.
The impacts on military readiness, the local economies, and lifestyles are very similar with the different approaches taken by Ukraine and California to reduce transportation fuel availability.
Ronald Stein is an internationally published columnist and energy consultant, and a policy advisor for The Heartland Institute.
