Russians Use Civilian Cars to Deliver Fuel to Frontline Troops

Russia has started using civilian vehicles to transport fuel to its military units in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine.

A video published by the Exilenova+ Telegram channel captures Russians describing the operation themselves.

According to a man speaking in the video, a convoy of civilian cars carrying one ton of gasoline was organized in the city of Kizilyurt, Dagestan.

The fuel was packed in jerry cans and loaded into the trunks of private vehicles. The shipment was reportedly arranged at the request of the city’s authorities.

The gasoline is said to be intended for Russian military units stationed in Tokmak, a Russian-occupied city in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region.

In addition to transporting fuel, the drivers in the convoy are carrying 1.5 million rubles to purchase another batch of gasoline for the military.

Beyond supplying vehicles, gasoline is a critically important resource for maintaining the combat readiness of Russian units at the front lines. Modern warfare requires a constant power supply for electronic warfare (EW) systems, charging batteries for reconnaissance and strike drones, and powering communication equipment and other devices. Generators are the primary power source in dugouts and observation posts.

Russian forces have also begun disguising military trucks as civilian vehicles due to active attacks by Ukrainian drones deep behind the lines.

In the northern part of Crimea, an unusually fresh blue-painted Ural truck was spotted. A man in civilian clothes with a short haircut was driving, even though the vehicle still bore military license plates.

The vehicle’s cargo bed also stands out. Although it is designed to resemble a civilian dump truck, its dimensions appear unusually large, suggesting it may have been modified to transport military supplies.

According to the Crimean Wind monitoring project, the command of Russia’s Dnepr Group of Forces has ordered the large-scale use of civilian-looking vehicles to transport fuel along the highway linking Rostov-on-Don with Russian-occupied Crimea.

The move is believed to be an attempt to conceal military logistics from Ukrainian drone strikes, which have increasingly targeted Russian supply routes and fuel shipments far behind the front lines.

In recent weeks, the Ukrainian Defense Forces have intensified drone attacks on logistics trucks and fuel tankers traveling along routes from Russia to occupied Crimea. The increased frequency of these strikes has already forced the invaders to restrict cargo movement through the temporarily occupied parts of the Kherson region toward the peninsula.