DEADLY Riots in Russia: Fuel Crisis Is BURYING Putin Alive

Moscow is falling apart. Russians are withdrawing billions of dollars from their banks because they are genuinely worried that their own government is about to take their deposits to fund this war. That fear is real. Russia's own war bloggers are now sounding the alarm pointing out that the government is running out of money and men. This is exactly why tens of thousands of Russians are fleeing the country because they want no part of a war that is going horribly horribly wrong. In the middle of all this, the biggest city in Europe, the capital of Russia, Moscow, is just running out of gas. In fact, situation in Moscow is worse than anywhere else in Russia. So, to answer all of this, Putin is doing what he has always done. He's now jailing anyone who criticizes the war. Even Russian politicians do not get any mercy. You go against his special military operation, you go straight to the Gulag. So, let's get into all of this and more. Starting, of course, with the chaos on the streets of Moscow, because this chaos could end in a bank run, a full-on banking crisis in one of the biggest countries in the world. And we'll get to the crisis. But first, take a look at what the streets of Moscow look like right now. People are waiting for hours and hours, sometimes tens of hours, just to get gas. And things are getting heated. Moscow, 2026, indeed. It is insane that the Russian capital is feeling the pain so quickly after Ukraine started striking Russian refineries. Initially, Putin truly believed that this war would never reach the elites of Moscow. Yet, here we are. Now, that video, the clip we just saw, actually goes on for three more minutes and we'll look at the whole thing at the end of the video. But first, let's look at the banking crisis, because that's the thing that Russians and even the Kremlin is worried most about. This is the kind of thing that can collapse a modern economy. It doesn't matter which economy it is. If the banks stop working, the economy stops working. And guess what? That is exactly where Russia is headed. Take a look at this report. Now, before I read this message, it is important to point out that this is coming from a Russian war blogger who is supporting the war. So this is someone who supports the war. He wants Putin to go even further than what he has already done. And here's what he's saying about the Russian budget. Take a look. The Russian federal budget deficit has reached a record high of 8,680 billion rubles. I think that's around $90 billion. You can see this for yourself by reviewing the website, expenditures around 28 trillion rubles, and revenue around 20 trillion rubles. Let me remind you that the plan deficit at the start of the year was just $3.8 trillion. And then it was quietly increased to $4.7. And of course, this doesn't even take into account the $1.5 trillion of regional budget deficits and social fun deficit. Therefore, if nothing is done, treasury revenues will dry up in November 2026. To save public finances from collapse will have to make extremely difficult and unpopular decisions. We can print 8 trillion rubles, devalue the currency in order to replenish the treasury with nominal income. Now this is the scary part. Or we can forcefully convert part of citizens bank deposits into government bonds. In simple words, the Russian government may raid its own banks and take over its own citizens saving to keep funding this special military operation. I guess this is truly now a special economic operation. Now I know what some of you guys are wondering. Sam, what are the real chances that Putin actually does something this stupid? Because I think we all agree that this would basically kill the Russian economy. And I don't mean just foreign investors running away. I mean, even domestic Russian public, just losing what little trust they still have in the economy. And let's be honest, I don't know the right answer. I don't know the answer of what's the probability that Putin is going to do this. But you know what's even more important than the right answer? What Russians believe. And if we just look at data coming out from the Russian central bank, it looks like Russians are actually worried about Putin taking over their deposits. And that's the important part. Russians are pulling billions of dollars out of their banks every single month in fear of Putin seizing their deposits. And the amounts they're pulling out are record-setting almost every single month. Just this month, Russians have pulled out 300 billion rubles already. That's around 2.5 billion dollars. The month before. So in July, they pulled out roughly 7 billion dollars. And then month before in June, they pulled out another 5 billion dollars. Every month, the number just keeps on going up and up. Now, of course, not everyone is pulling out their money because they are worried about Putin stealing it. They have different reasons. But at the end of the day, the result is the same. Some people are pulling out because they are truly worried about Putin. Other people are pulling out their money because Ukrainian drone strikes on warehouses. They think if Wallberry collapses, something that big, or company that big, that will cause a banking collapse, so a banking crisis. And that's why they don't want to be someone who's stuck with their money in the bank while the bank is collapsing. So they're pulling their money out. Which creates an interesting dilemma for Russian banks because let's say there is no banking crisis, right? But if people believe there is a banking crisis, they will stop pulling their money out. And that in turn creates a banking crisis because modern banking system, these banks are not keeping the entire amount of money that they're getting in deposits. They loan out, let's say, 50%, 70%, 80%, depends on what the Russian reserve requirement is. So even if there's not a crisis, now that so many people are pulling money out, well, that is going to create a crisis. It kind of becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. And guess what, if this continues, we may see it happen this year. In 2026 already, Russians have pulled out more than 2.5 trillion rubles. And here's the more interesting part. This is actually more money than what Russians pulled out in the first weeks of the war in 2022. Back then, it kind of made sense that everyone was pulling money out. Foreigners, Russians, big companies, everyone saw what Putin was doing, launching the biggest war in Europe since World War II. So they wanted to move their money to something that was safer, right? So it made sense. Russian pulled out trillions of rubles back then. But now, they're doing this in the middle of 2026. That's definitely something that worries them. And it tells you how pessimistic Russians have gotten now compared to 2022. And for banks, this problem is actually compounded because on one hand, you have Russians. Depositors pulling their money out. But on the other hand, we have the loans that banks have given out. Well, these loans are failing. So they're getting squeezed from both sides. Take a look at what I mean. Putin's defense bank reported multi-billion dollar losses due to loan defaults. Now, this is actually one of the bigger banks in Russia. I think top five in the country. And it's state owned. So Putin was basically telling those banks to help out all the defense companies who needed money to expand so they can keep feeding the Russian army that's fighting in Ukraine. But when you can't really just the loan, Putin is telling you to give out loans. There's a higher chance that companies are going to go under and you're not going to get your loans back. Well, that's exactly what's happening. Now, this is a report we just got. But apparently, Kremlin already knew about this because according to this report, Kremlin since the start of this year, Kremlin has been, you're to quietly injecting money into this bank to make sure it stays afloat all the while loans are failing. And that's important too because as we covered in the beginning, Russia itself, the government budget, is not looking to stable. And now, Putin is being forced to bail out banks that are failing because of his policy. Now, here's something you may find hard to believe. Some of that money that Putin is spending is actually being spent on you. Russia actually spends billions of dollars spreading propaganda that's directed towards the Western audience. In fact, there's this term called Russian web brigades. This is basically a nickname given to Russian bots, Kremlin bots, all these pro-Russian fake accounts you see online, whether it be on Twitter or here on YouTube. And these bots, they pretend to be someone who lives in the West, although all defending every single action that Putin carries out. The goal of this brigade is to convince you that Russia is winning, and it's not worth helping out Ukraine because it's a losing battle. Take a look at this video, some Russian residents shared recently. I want to leave this sad video here. I'm walking around Adler down the main street and everything is closed. There was a cafe right here. The space is for rent, one place is closed. Here's a place for rent. Here it says store closing. This herb shop is closed too. Moving on, this is our old store, also closed. I just have no words. It hurts so much. It's such a shame. I know this one's available too. I've walked past literally three buildings. Here's a place for rent, and a girl used to work over there. This cafe is an open. These ones shut down. Oh my god. So guess what Putin's solution to all this is? Well, he's apparently giving guns to the banking staff, and I'm not joking about that. Moscow is arming bank staff to shoot down drones, but many Russians believe the real motive is something entirely different. Officially, it's about drone defense. Unofficially, people suspect it's about preventing citizens from storming banks if the economy deteriorates further. With fuel shortages, rising prices, long queues, the risk grows for withdrawal runs, cash shortages, local unrest, and desperate attempts to access saving. In that scenario, the threat is the population. Now, unfortunately, Russia is already implementing policies or unofficial policies to make sure that people cannot withdraw the cash that is theirs. Even in the bank, the cash belongs to depositors, but unfortunately, that's not always the case in Russia. Take a look at this clip where a woman is talking about how she's not able to You take her money out and close her account in the bank, because apparently that's illegal. Money from banks at a record pace. Who knows where this money ends up later? No one knows what it's used for. What is being paid for with it? I believe that in such difficult times, this is simply unacceptable. Today, VidiB bank blocked my account and blocked my card when I tried to close a savings account at the bank. This sounds so absurd that I don't even have the words. I wasn't trying to withdraw any money. I didn't transfer anything anywhere to anyone. I just logged into online banking and wanted to close a savings account that I opened three months ago. And they wrote to me. This is a suspicious transaction. We have blocked your account. We have blocked your card. To unblock it, please contact a bank branch. Are you fucking kidding me or what? I was just fucking gobsmacked. On top of that, we now have the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Russia, officially advising Russians to limit their cash withdrawals and to avoid transferring money at night. Because, you know, it's dangerous. Someone could steal your money like it's the Russia in the 1990s. And talking about the 90s, actually, the energy crisis or the fuel shortage in Russia has reached such a point that the gas pumps have become dangerous. People now have stories in Moscow saying that, "Hey, if you want gas from a gas station, you need to bring a gun." That's how crazy the situation has gotten. And we'll talk about that story in just a second. But first, let me show you how bad the situation has gotten in the Russian capital in just last few days. Like, it's hard to believe how fast things are falling apart. Take a look. So, as you can see from the shot on your screen, this shot is basically showing what percentage of Russian gas stations actually have gas. You know, that's their whole job. That's why they call it gas stations. Now, the red line is the Moscow state, which is a bit confusing. The blue line is the Moscow city. That's the capital. And the orange line is Russia as a whole. Pay attention to August, like the recent August states. In just last week, Moscow went from having half of its gas stations with fuel to less than 20% of its gas stations having fuel. This is the capital city, the biggest city in Europe. And one in five gas stations have gas, maybe even less than that. And the situation is actually worse than all of Russia can buy in. And of course, compared to the Moscow region, two of the situation is actually worse in the capital. That's just hard to believe. This means if you want fuel in Russia, it has now become a three-day special military operation. And I'm not joking about that. And I'm not actually joking, even though it sounds like a joke. Here you can see what it looks like. Lines and lines, of course, just waiting for their turn at the pumps. Sometimes it takes hours to get to the front. Sometimes tens of hours, like 10, 11, 12 hours, so half the day wasted just to fill up one tank. Now, in some rare situations, you get to the front and there's no gas left. I would be so pissed if that happened to me, but take a listen, it actually did happen to someone. But please, if this line here is at all four, this is all four, we're closing now. We're running out of fuel. That's it. We stop it too. We'll open it five at best. If they deliver it, if the fuel truck comes. So there's no gas right now. There's no point in getting in line at all. You won't make it in time, and they won't either. And are you just walking around telling everyone, "Well, yeah, I feel bad for the people, but what can you do?" Well, I didn't go any further. That's it. I'm not suicidal. All right. Just around the local area. Okay. Thank you for your concern. Have a good day. All right. Sounds good. Thank you for your concern, guys. But there is a solution here, and this brings us to the gun story that I've been promising all this time. A Russian blogger just explained a unique little method of getting gasoline into a canister if you are a Russian. Take a look. It's a truly rebuilding the Soviet Union. Yesterday, I filled a canister with 30 liters of gasoline. I need the gasoline for a generator, and all my cars are diesel. So draining the tank wasn't an option. I had no choice, either fill it in the canister or bring the generator itself to the gas station. I anticipated the screeching noise, so I didn't bother getting the canister out beforehand. I went to the cashier first and paid. Then I returned to my car and took out my AKM and slugged it over my back. AKM is basically a Soviet assault rifle. It's like AK-47, but I think it's just a little bit lighter. So that's what he's carrying to the gas station. Then I took out my canister and started filling it, turning my back to the gas station attendance. They grumbled behind my back like you can't feel it in the canisters. But they did not come near me without enthusiasm. I filled the canister and drove away with sad and unpleasant thought that the 90s are coming back. I have to scare people with the side of a gun, whoever has the gun is right. I guess this is what happens when you start handing guns to bank tellers, slowly citizens are just bringing rifles to gas stations. Now of course, Ukraine has no plans to make this situation any easier for Russia. In fact, Ukraine is actively working towards creating more trouble. Just last night they hit another one of Russia's refinery and it was one of the largest. Here we have Zonsky himself confirming the hit. The statement says Ukraine's deep strikes hit an older refinery more than 1600 kilometers around a thousand miles from the Ukrainian border. It was one of the largest older refinery in Russia and guess what, this wasn't the first time Ukraine was hitting it. Russia probably assumes since it's so far, maybe it's safe. But Ukraine has hit this in April, then in May, then it took some time off in June, came back in July and now in August. This is an important part of Ukrainian strategy where even if Russia carries out repairs on the refinery, Ukraine just comes back and destroys it again that way, the refinery cannot actually help out with Russia's oil deficit. This is exactly why some Russian warbloggers are now warning of a few collapse that is being measured in day, aka, the gap between what Russia is consuming, what Russia needs, versus what Russia is able to produce, or I guess import. That gap is very high, that means there's only so much Russia can pull out from its reserves. Take a listen to this warning. In Russia, following yesterday's attacks on the orsk refineries and the fire at the far east refinery, the estimated remaining gasoline production capacity is less than 20 percent, roughly one-fifth of what it was. This means Russia currently has a deficit of 70,000 tons of gasoline per day. The situation with jet fuel is the most critical, as planes cannot fly in Barmatuka. It will happen to air transport, rail transport on non-electrified lines, and garbage collection in cities. In short, we understand there is no way out of this situation, and Russia will be paralyzed. The war will end precisely because of the fuel crisis. I want to remind you once again that if we count five or more refineries on fire per week, Russia has at most two, three, or four weeks left. If there are four refineries on fire, the situation could worsen before the end of the season. But in general, the countdown is measured in days. Now some people do have some solutions inside of Russia, and this next clip we have a Russian lady who kind of has a positive attitude. She says, "Why do you need gas? We still have beer in the store, and why is everyone freaking out as long as there's beer? Take a listen." Everyone's bitching right now, there's no gas, there are fucking massive lines on the highways for gas. That's all bullshit. But imagine if a drone hit a brewery or beer stores, that would be totally fucked. There would be lines everywhere, so be glad, fuck the gas. The main thing is that the beer is safe. Now unfortunately for a little Vladimir, Ukraine actually has plans to make this situation even worse, or specifically going after Russian elites and Russian oligarchs. We now know from a leaked report that Ukraine had a secret plan to shut down Moscow's Air Force. Shut down its skyline, not skyline, what is airspace? The plan was leaked just yesterday, and even though it's paused down, it's not completely cancelled. So take a look at what this means. According to this report, "At the beginning of the year, officials presented Zelensky with a plan that proposed expanding strikes in Russia. The plan proposed attacking Moscow's airports with swarms of cheap AI-powered drones. The plan to launch up to 1000 drones per night to overwhelm Russian air defenses. The goal was to permanently close Moscow's skies and force the secession of all flights to Russia. The drones were to independently find targets using AI and preloaded math. Zelensky actually did not give the go ahead for the plan because he was fearing that such strike could result in the destruction of a civilian aircraft. So he only authorized further preparations. By spring, the operation was codenamed M&M, but the plan was halted in July following the dismissal of its author, then Defense Minister Mikhailov Fedorov. But the plan may resume in the future. Honestly, this sounds scary, but this is where it's important to provide some context as to what Russia is doing. Since 2022, so since Putin launched his three-day special military operation, flights into Ukraine have been completely shut down, so it doesn't matter who you are, just a normal guy, or the president of the United States. Everyone has to fly into Poland, then take a train that takes you to the Ukrainian capital. That train ride is roughly 10 hours. That's how Ukrainians have been living since 2022. In fact, even Zelensky himself cannot fly side of Ukraine he has to take the train out when he's visiting a different country to Poland and from there he flies. That means according to this plan what Ukraine was really planning was to just give Russia a taste of its own medicine. Now let's see where this plan goes. I'm sure Ukraine will try to do this in the future but this plan should most definitely put enormous pressure on the Russian ologarchy. I'm certain that Russian ologarks will not be happy using trains to get around. It takes very very long time and I have seen some of these private jets that Russian ologarks use, it just looks insane. I think the president of the United States does not fly in that kind of luxury that Russian ologarks are used to. So if Moscow's airspace is shut down, Putin is going to feel a lot of heat coming from all these people who are benefiting a lot from this war. And of course that will be good news for Ukraine because Putin's paranoia is already reaching new heights. Putin just arrested yet another candidate who was running against his party in the upcoming Duma election. So Russian parliament election. And the reason behind that arrest? Well apparently this guy made some post criticizing the regime. So he was arrested and he cannot run in the parliament election. This is what today's Russia has come to. The biggest crime in the country is criticizing the war or of course criticizing the news are Putin. You know the most shocking part of this story is that Ukraine just carried out its biggest counteroffensive since 2023. It wiped out basically all the gains that Russia has made this year while losing hundreds of thousands of soldiers. But no mainstream media outlet is actually reporting on this. It doesn't matter what side you look at. The New York Times is not reporting on this news at least not yet. The Wall Street Journal is not reporting on it either. And then of course we have the other side. We have Russian propaganda machine that's spending billions of dollars every single year to spread the lies that Putin wants everyone to believe. This is exactly why we do what we do to cover the truth about Ukrainian bravery and fight back against Russian propaganda. Now I will admit we don't have billions of dollars like Vladimir Putin but we do have you guys. Recently we launched basic insider. It's a way for you to support us and get bonus coverage in return. You can become a member right now by clicking the join button down below or by going to basicsinsider.com. Now let me tell you what you get for becoming a member because this is not just some kind of charity. If you do become a member you're getting exclusive videos that we're uploading every single day that don't appear here on YouTube. We go much deeper into the stories we cover, spend more time on details that don't fit into those videos. And of course best of all bring in experienced military veterans like Chuck Farge to break down the front line footage, explain what's really happening and separate facts from propaganda. It's really our uncensored extended coverage for people who want to understand these conflicts beyond the headlines. And of course I'll be honest your membership also helps us tremendously. So if you like more in-depth analysis while helping us continue this work you can become a member by clicking the join button down below or by going to basicsinsider. We'd love to have you and best of all here's a segment from our exclusive video where Chuck Farge is doing his regular breakdowns. Take a listen. Approval rate right now which doesn't mean they won't be all returned. Of course the elections can do anything but what we have to worry about Putin. I don't have to worry about it. You don't have to worry about it. The people around Putin his oligarchical class his cadre of corrupt millionaires look man they just want to go back to cash in those big checks and hanging out with the Swedish bikini team in the Kote Azur. They don't want to do this. And history shows if you have a despotic dictator surrounded by a cadre of enablers once they feel threatened Caligula Nero Saddam Hussein they will move against him. So history's inevitable on this one. This next one is showing how they're moving around now. So even I took a close look at their killer there that's you know that's how you always say I'm not when you say something like that on your uniform. These are Chechen Goons right they are they are of course from Chechnya set by the puppet dictator and they are famous for doing incredibly stupid things on camera. They're basically rear echelon guys. They're often used as enforcers against the Russian conscripts and I'm not surprised they're writing an ambulance. Why wouldn't they be you know and I guess it's not technically against the jadeva code to have a combatant in an ambulance but if you're using an ambulance to transport troops to the front well let me put it this way I think the Ukrainians can figure out what an ambulance is doing and the you know the Ukrainians don't attack the Red Cross. I mean Ukraine does not need a war crime violation to poison its relationships with its Western benefactors. That constrains it more than anything but you know I have personally seen video of Russian conscripts waving a Russian flag on top of a burnt out ambulance APC on the front near Kostnantinivka so they'll do what they can get away with and they do. So this is a doorbell camera caught a missile strike that came 100 kilometers into Poland if you heard about this last week. Yeah absolutely. Yeah I watch these things and they put the like you know Ukrainian acid rock on it and I'm death metal and I'm just like hey I could do without that. Yeah so we've got obviously your farm field there in eastern Poland rolling country just just like that I'd say this is probably in the south eastern corner of Poland. Okay so there is the crater right there and this is part of a Russian hybrid warfare campaign. So there's a couple ways to look at this. One you know a couple of things you could say and interpretation which is always what you need in hybrid warfare. So a Russian cruise missile strayed or deliberately entered Polish airspace. Okay finding a fact. Did it strayed? Did it deliberately enter? Well I don't know. How did it land? Well it's warhead went high order right so you're looking at a 10 meter crater right there. Finding a fact. Whatever went in there detonated. Okay here's a question. What was it aimed at right? Was it aimed at the you know Warsaw? Did it deviate or did it just land in this farmer's field accidentally? Okay I will meditate for it's not an accident. The war had went off. Lots of things has to happen before that thing goes boom. It gets armed. There's still another safety for altitude. It switches to impact or air burst. All of these things are not coincidental. They don't malfunction. That's why they're safety's. I will say they picked up they picked the field in the open and this is the message right? We hit this farmer's field. We can hit whatever the F we want to in your country. We're Russia, you're Poland. That to me the means is the message right? They didn't drop leaflets right? They didn't send over a styrofoam you know reconnaissance drone. They sent over a KH 101 cruise missile. Adam we're going to see this over the summer into the fall and into the winter. Russian hybrid operations are going to continue and that's going to be sabotage assassinations. You're going to see incidents in Poland. All of a sudden Polish thugs start beating up Ukrainian speakers on the streets right? Those guys get hired off tick tock. Want to make some easy money? You know put on a black turtleneck and a black ball cap and beat up a Ukrainian I'll send you 500 euros. We've seen that begun this week. Yeah. Listen I have peace coming out in the key post. It probably won't be out for seven or eight days and it's exactly on hybrid warfare. Okay this is the Denepro river in Oleschi which is right across the the river from hair sawn. Here we have some Russian seal team guys. No we don't. We've got an idiot in a kiddie pool floating boat and I just have to tell you that is some remarkable dropping. Don't pay don't play beer pong with these guys. Now they slowed this down so you can't compute the fall time because then you could absolutely compute the you know the altitude but you know you I think Adam and I can both figure out the altitude but the shot is completely remarkable right? That's insanely impressive. Yeah there's a guy who did not calculate swimming with all my body armor on and 300 rounds of ammunition and the rifle hanging around my neck. Well I'm a lifeguard. Somebody called a lifeguard. No I can't make it. Sorry. Thanks bud. I'm going to sit here and spin my whistle. You know go home if you don't want that to happen. And here's the funny thing. It looks like well that's a tire but I was going to say it looks like a life ring hanging right there but he didn't get to it. That's a tire. I'll throw him a cinder block. They deserved it. They deserve it. Actually you don't want to die go home man. Just go home. Okay that looks like a yak primary flight trainer. Now I can't tell for sure but you know tricycle wing low wing monoplane that absolutely is what it is. So this is a Soviet era primary flight trainer. I can't tell if that's five five six or seven six two but looks like he man that is some good rifle shooting. So we can't hear it but he probably could hear that he hit it with a change, and the engine will change if he hit it, it'll go from brrrrrt. So there it is, heading down. I don't know for sure, but I suspect this is south of Odessa, which is west of Haerson on the Black Sea coast. It is a beautiful resort town. It's kind of, if Miami Beach had cliffs, that's what it's like. It's just this kind of beautiful place. But that's some good shooting, man. One shot, you got that thing. If you want to watch rest of this video and more video like this, you can go to Basics Insider or click the join button down below. Every time Ukraine hits back at Russia, the truth gets buried under headlines that talk about escalation or risk of nuclear war. But here we cover the other side, the reality of a country that's fighting for its survival, and the collapse of an empire that never believed it would fall. 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