The Russian Gas Stations are Out of Gas

Gas lines. In Russia. And they stretch on for miles.

Even Czar Vlad had to admit this week there was a slight “penury” in fuel, “maybe 5 percent.” I guess some people did some thing to Russia’s refineries.

The gigantic gas station with nukes that is today’s Russia is running out of gas. It’s quite remarkable to see. Russia is now importing gasoline from Kazakhstan.

It also reminds us that war is not just fought with kinetic weapons, although they sure do make a difference when they work. It is also fought on the economic front. Just ask Donald Trump. (More on that later).

There are increasing signs that Russia’s war in Ukraine is heading toward disaster.

Sure, there was the soldier’s video who demanded an audience with Putin to explain the war to him from a soldier’s perspective, or else the army would turn on him. That video got twenty million views, and Putin responded characteristically: he had the guy arrested.

Until the next one appears.

The June casualty rate among Russian soldiers reportedly rose in June to 40,000, well above the 25,000 troops Putin can raise monthly through ordinary conscription. That is simply astonishing. And for all those losses, the Russians hardly advanced on the ground.

And then, there are the rumors. I hear them all them time on French television, which is known for preferring rumor to news. Putin has fled to a bunker, maybe the one north of Moscow, where Zelensky claims he has moved critical air defense assets. True? I doubt it. But who knows?

Another: that Putin’s 93 meter yacht, the Graceful, has been seen under heavy Russian naval escort in the seas off of Denmark. Why? To protect it from getting hit at port by a Ukrainian drone.

And then, there are the facts. The Ukrainians continue to pound Russian oil refineries and storage depots, even within visual range of the Kremlin, and this has brought the war home to ordinary Russians who might otherwise not care.

Another: Zelensky this week warned Belarus president Lukashenko not to throw his military behind Putin in the Ukraine war.  Calling him a “captive ally” of Russia, he threatened him with a drone barrage if he didn’t immediately cut off support for the Russian military.

What did Lukashenko do? He took a quick trip to Beijing, to kiss the ring of President Xi (Yes, Mr Lukashenko, you really are the president of a sovereign nation, not a Putin vassal).

All is not well for Czar Vlad at home or abroad. All of his former allies in the Collective Security Treaty Organization, the replacement of the Warsaw Pact, told him this week he was on his own in Ukraine. (It’s not just effete NATO Euros who are ingrates, Vlad).

The word is, Putin is now looking for an offramp thanks to Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, who indicated this week that they can handle two negotiations at one time, especially when one of them, with the Iranians, is not going so well.

Speaking of those effete Euros, Trump reminded them in a Truth social post on Thursday just how ungrateful they really are. “The United States spends more money on NATO than any other country, by far, to protect them, without getting any benefit from so doing.” In fact, the U.S. spends more than 10X the amount of the next biggest NATO spender, the UK, $999 billion to $90.5 billion.

The President is just warming up for the NATO summit in Turkey next week and wants the 32 member countries to remember just how furious he still is over their failure to provide any assistance whatsoever to the US during the Iran war. Italy, Germany, France, and initially Britain, wouldn’t even allow us to overfly their airspace to bring equipment to theater!

Today in Iran began the week-long ceremonies to bury the late and unlamented Ali Khamenei. After two days in Tehran, the show moves to Qom, traditional seat of Iran’s clergy, and for a two-day wanderlust to Najaf and Karbala in Iraq. Most people don’t realize that Iranian shiite clergy venerate those two Iraqi cities as much as they do Qom and Mashad. And many of Iran’s current crop of leaders were actually born in Iraq.

The one person who won’t be attending: Mojtaba, the Gayatollah who, we are told, replaced Daddy. How’s that for filial piety?

That of course has fed the rumor mill in Tehran that he is, in fact, a former non-ayatollah (aka, a naya-tollah”) who was killed during the same February 28 air strikes that took out Dad.

And all those written proclamations? Written in an underground room either by Qalbaf or Pezeshkian. It’s not me saying this, but hard-line members of the Iranian parliament who believe that Qalibaf and Pezeshkian have conducted a quiet coup, replacing the clergy with a newly-empowered Supreme Council on National Security they control.

I discuss this, as well as Trump’s increasingly frank statements that the Iran MoU was all about stabilizing oil markets and rebuilding our military stockpiles, on this week’s Prophecy Today Weekend.

As always, you can listen live on Saturday, July 4, at 1 PM, on 550 AM or 104.9 FM in the Jacksonville, Florida, area, or by using the Way Radio application.

Happy 250th, America! May we prove wrong all the nay-sayers and lefties who predict our imminent demise.

PS: and in case you missed my brief “wrestling with a squid” segment on Newsmax last week, you can watch it here: https://x.com/KenTimmerman/status/2070178197690339804?s=20

©2026 Kenneth R. Timmerman. All rights reserved.

Website: kentimmerman.com

Ken Timmerman’s 14th book of non-fiction, THE IRAN HOUSE: Tales of Revolution, Persecution, War, and Intrigue, can be ordered by clicking here or by viewing my author’s page, here. 

Raising Olives in Provence, can be ordered by clicking here.