Paul Goble
Staunton, July 17 – The Kremlin is fighting the gas shortage in the first instance by giving Moscow residents more gas even as the shortage of fuel increases in the other federal subjects of the Russian Federation, to judge from data gathered by a CDB Benze application almost half a million Russians have now downloaded.
That app allows Russians to find out where gasoline is available and where it isn’t so that they can make decisions about where to go to fill their tanks. Not surprisingly, its map shows that in Moscow gas is becoming ever easier to get while in the rest of the country, shortages continue to mount (pointmedia.io/story/6a5a118d75d0d3346a25cb5c).
This doesn’t surprise Russians. One Muscovite told Point Media that as far as Russia is concerned, “Moscow is another country.” It took her “exactly three minutes to go to a gas station and fill up while in the regions, many people have to search and search and then wait in line for hours.
That the Kremlin has been taking care of elites loyal to itself has been much noted; that it is taking care of Muscovites more than other residents of the Russian Federation has attracted less attention. But as this becomes more widely known, it may infuriate those beyond the ring road and even have an impact on the upcoming Duma elections.
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