The Holodomor fueled Soviet industrialization. Kamil Galeev at the Wilson Center has a good thread on how exported grain from Ukraine paid for American designed and built factories through Amtorg.

The fuel problem you cite is just one more example of Russian dependence on imported technology through the theft of commodities from subjugated non-Russian peoples to win wars. The actors change, but the movie is just a rerun of the same old show since Ivan Grozny lost in Livonia and Nicholas I became Crimean Loser 1.0.