Road freight deliveries from China to Russia have become 15–25% more expensive over the past month amid Russia’s fuel crisis. Market participants told the newspaper Kommersant about the increase.
The logistics company Optimalog said transport costs are rising almost every day by 10,000–20,000 rubles. Since April, the price of a shipment on the Shanghai–Moscow route has increased from 730,000–750,000 rubles to 1.05–1.1 million rubles per truck.
According to Sigma, transporting 20 tons of cargo on the Manzhouli–Novolipetsk route still cost 900,000 rubles on July 5, but by July 7 starting prices had already reached 1.15 million rubles. Other sources interviewed by the paper cited similar figures: the average cost of sending a truck from Manzhouli to Moscow has risen by another 50,000–70,000 rubles over the past week and a half.
Market participants say the tariff increase is driven not only by higher diesel prices but also by longer delivery times caused by queues at gas stations and border crossings. About 7,500 vehicles a week normally pass through the Zabaykalsk Russia-China border checkpoint, but a so-called green corridor has now been introduced there, giving fuel trucks priority passage in morning and evening time slots.
As Kommersant’s sources describe it, this has effectively created two lines at the border: a general queue for the main cargo flow and a separate, faster-moving queue for fuel trucks. As a result, transit time from Zabaykalsk to Moscow has increased by 23% and now stands at 10–12 days.
Russia’s fuel crisis has been ongoing for several weeks. The report says it has been triggered by intensified strikes by the Ukrainian armed forces on Russian oil refineries. In many regions, both authorities and filling-station chains have imposed limits on how much fuel can be bought at one time. According to Rosstat, consumer gasoline prices in June 2026 rose by 6.88% from the previous month and by nearly 20% year on year. Reuters had earlier estimated that gasoline production in Russia, after Ukrainian drone attacks on refineries, had fallen to 65% of average seasonal consumption.