Chita is in Zabaikalsky Krai, so it's probably the same issue that was being complained about in Russia's Duma in this other United24 article:
https://lemmy.today/post/55908488
One of them, Vyacheslav Markhayev, said people were queuing 36 hours to get just 15 litres of gasoline in the far eastern Zabaikalsky region.
Anyway:
A driver heading home to Saint Petersburg spent 39 hours in line to buy fuel in the Siberian city of Chita, Meduza reported on July 3.
Vlad and his wife were driving home from Vladivostok, where they had collected a newly bought car, when they stopped in Chita to refuel. He recounted joining the line at a Rosneft station on the city's edge on June 28 at 11 p.m. The tank was not filled until June 30, in the early afternoon.
City stations were dispensing just 15 liters (4 gallons) per car, he explained, blaming suppliers who delivered only 500 liters (132 gallons) per outlet. The Rosneft station he chose capped each fill at 50 liters (13 gallons).
Chita has become a bottleneck for drivers crossing the country. Vlad noted that the last station to the east lies in Skovorodino, an 11-hour drive away, with no fuel in between, funneling westbound traffic from Vladivostok into the same lines.
So, if that that's kind of an important point for east-west road logistics for Russia, that seems like it's got potential to cause other cascading logistical issues from decoupling eastern and western Russia.
Russia does have the Trans-Siberian Railway, which is apparently handled by diesel trains, and there are diesel road vehicles. Diesel doesn't (at the moment, at any rate) suffer from the level of shortages that gasoline does.
EDIT: I also gotta say that if the guy is right about there being no fuel available between Skovorodino and Chita, at some point, I'd think that you just aren't going to make it from Chita to Skovorodino short of maybe going through the queue multiple times.
checks Google Maps
That's 924 km away. That's 574 miles, so if you get 13 gallons from this fuel station with the higher cap, and that's all you have in the tank, you'd need a vehicle capable of 44 mpg to make it to the next refueling point. I mean...a Prius or something like that can do that, but a lot of even newer vehicles here in the US can't.
That said, he was coming from Skovorodino. Maybe they're imposing separate fuel limits based on the direction you're going or something like that.
