# DECODING: Moscow refinery paralyzed until 2027: the silent weapon bleeding the Kremlin dry

> In the industrial district of Kapotnya, on the southeastern edge of Moscow, stands one of the most important refineries in all of Russia. Its processing capacity: 11 million tons of crude per year. Its output: gasoline, diesel, aviation kerosene, bitumen, sulfur, polymers. Its share of the Moscow region's energy needs: roughly 40%. Until spring 2026, this installation ran at fu

- Author: Maxime Marquette
- Publisher: MadMax (https://mad-max.co)
- Section: Analysis
- Published: 2026-06-28
- Canonical URL: https://mad-max.co/en/article/decryptage-raffinerie-de-moscou-paralysee-jusqu-en-2027-l-arme-silencieuse-qui-a

## Introduction: Kapotnya, the ghost factory at the heart of Putin's system

### A refinery in the heart of a capital that believed itself invulnerable

In the industrial district of **Kapotnya**, on the southeastern edge of **Moscow**, stands one of the most important refineries in all of **Russia**. Its processing capacity: **11 million tons of crude per year**. Its output: gasoline, diesel, aviation kerosene, bitumen, sulfur, polymers. Its share of the Moscow region's energy needs: roughly **40%**. Until spring **2026**, this installation ran at full capacity — invisible, indispensable, protected by the densest air defense systems on the planet. Until Ukrainian drones changed the equation.

On **June 16, 2026**, a first raid triggered a fire visible for kilometers. Two days later, on **June 18**, a second strike hit the **ELOU-AVT-6** unit — the core of the primary refining process, the unit that separates crude into the fractions needed for fuel production. According to two oil industry sources cited by **Reuters** on **June 24, 2026**, the **Kapotnya** refinery will not resume operations this year. The restart is expected at the earliest in **2027**.

### Two strikes in one week: the method of a Ukraine that hits fast and hits hard

Two strikes in **48 hours** on the same installation: this is not luck — it is doctrine. Ukraine has learned to strike twice: the first blow to force security teams to respond and deploy, the second to exploit the resulting chaos or finish what the first did not destroy. This method, tested on military and logistics targets, is now being applied to Russia's strategic energy infrastructure.

The second strike, on **June 18**, was particularly precise. Images filmed by **Kapotnya** residents and analyzed by OSINT experts showed multiple ignition points, including at least one directly on the **ELOU-AVT-6** unit. The systems identified — **FP-1**, **Lyutyi**, and **Shahed**-type drones — reflect a deliberate diversification of platforms designed to complicate the task of Russian air defenses.

*Two strikes in 48 hours on Kapotnya: I keep coming back to this because it reveals something essential about Ukrainian strategy. This is not an opportunistic attack. It is sophisticated military planning. Strike, assess, restrike — this is the method of an army that learns fast and has understood that precision matters as much as volume. Facing a Russia that hammers Ukraine with mass missile salvos, Kyiv answers with surgical precision. And it works.*

## The ELOU-AVT-6 unit: understanding what burned

### The heart of the refining process taken offline

To measure the impact of the **June 18** strike, you need to understand what the **ELOU-AVT-6** unit is. This installation is what engineers call an **atmospheric-vacuum distillation** unit for crude oil — in plain terms, it is the primary refining stage, the one without which nothing else can function. It takes **crude oil**, heats it, and separates it into fractions: light naphtha, kerosene, diesel, heavy fuel oil, vacuum residue. These fractions then feed all the other units in the refinery.

Destroying or seriously damaging the **ELOU-AVT-6** means halting the entire production chain. Not a portion — all of it. None of the other units at **Kapotnya** can function without the product stream it generates. This is why two industry sources confirmed to **Reuters** that a restart is not feasible before **2027**. Rebuilding or repairing a primary distillation unit of this scale takes a minimum of six to twelve months, accounting for design, parts procurement, assembly, and testing.

### What Russia can no longer produce: the catalog of shortfalls

**Kapotnya** produced **AI-80EK**, **AI-92EK**, and **AI-95EK** gasoline — the three standard grades in Russia — as well as **diesel**, **aviation kerosene**, **bitumen** for roads, **sulfur** for the chemical industry, and **polymers**. This is a complete portfolio of products on which both the civilian economy and military operations depend. Diesel and aviation kerosene carry direct strategic military value.

The **Moscow region** will therefore need to import a significant share of its fuel needs from other Russian regions or, for the first time, by sea from abroad. This logistical redistribution is not free: it involves additional transport costs, delays, and dependence on alternative supply routes that were never designed to absorb this sudden load.

*Aviation kerosene — that is what I take away from this catalog of shortfalls. Because kerosene is what keeps the bombers flying over Ukraine. Every liter not produced at Kapotnya is a liter the Russian military has to source elsewhere. In the short term, Russia has stockpiles. In the medium term, the pressure accumulates. And that is precisely what Ukraine is after: not a spectacular collapse, but a progressive, irreversible degradation that eventually weighs on Russian military capacity.*

## Russia's response: importing gasoline by sea, or the humiliation of the petroleum rentier

### Russia, crude oil exporter, importing refined products

**Moscow's** decision to import gasoline by sea to compensate for the losses at **Kapotnya** and other damaged refineries is one of the most spectacular economic humiliations of this war. **Russia** is the world's second-largest oil producer. It exports millions of barrels of crude every day. And yet it now finds itself having to import refined petroleum products to fuel its own population.

This paradox reveals a structural vulnerability in Russian industry. **Russia** exports crude but transforms much of its production domestically — its refineries are at the core of its energy value chain. When these refineries are damaged, the crude stays in the pipelines but the finished products run short. This is an industrial bottleneck that Ukraine has identified and exploits with persistence.

### Maritime gasoline routes: a new logistical headache

Importing gasoline by sea raises complex logistical questions. **Where** to source the necessary volumes? **Which** countries will be willing to sell to a sanctioned Russia? **Which** Russian ports have the capacity to receive and redistribute these volumes? The **Baltic Sea** is partly inaccessible under sanctions pressure. The **Black Sea** is an active war theater. What remains are the **Caspian Sea**, the ports of **Novorossiysk**, and the eastern routes toward China and India.

These alternative routes exist, but they are longer, more expensive, and more complex than domestic supply. They also create a dependence on foreign suppliers — **China** or **India** in particular — who may use the situation to negotiate more favorable terms. **Moscow**, already under financial pressure with a budget deficit exceeding **$80 billion** according to **United24 Media**, is not in a strong negotiating position for these discussions.

*The image of a tanker carrying gasoline toward Russia — Russia, an oil producer — is one of the most striking metaphors for what this war has accomplished. It encapsulates, in one concrete image, the full economic absurdity of Putin's military adventurism. He wanted to conquer Ukraine for its wealth. He got refineries on fire and tankers traveling in the opposite direction. This is the triumph of historical irony.*

## The impact on the war budget: figures and realities

### A Russian economy already under extreme strain

To understand the impact of refinery strikes in the Russian economic context, a few figures are essential. **NATO** Secretary General **Mark Rutte** stated on **June 25, 2026** before the **Atlantic Council** that **Russia** now dedicates "more than **40% of its federal budget to defense — perhaps even close to 50%**," and that more than **70% of its tax revenues are absorbed by the war effort**. This level of economic militarization is unsustainable over the long term.

In this context, the Russian budget deficit exceeding **$80 billion** according to **United24 Media** of **June 23, 2026** is a red flag. **Zelensky's** sanctions adviser, cited by **RBC-Ukraine** the same day, went further, estimating that "Russia's economy has reached a dead end." The **IMF**, according to data compiled by the **Kiel Institute**, revised its Russian growth forecast for **2026** downward to **0.8%**, while Russia's GDP in the first quarter of **2026** reportedly contracted by **0.2%**.

### The collapse of refining production: one-third less

Russia's total refining production has fallen by one-third according to estimates cited by **NATO's** Secretary General. This figure, if confirmed, represents a massive degradation of Russian industrial capacity. A one-third reduction in refined output means less fuel for military vehicles, less kerosene for the air force, less diesel for heavy equipment — and rising domestic prices that weigh on the civilian population.

**Moscow** is expected to increase its military spending by an additional **4 to 5 trillion rubles** in **2026**, according to data published by **Bloomberg** via **Ground News** on **June 23**. This spending increase in a context of oil revenues degraded by strikes creates a growing fiscal pressure. Russia's sovereign wealth fund, according to **Rutte**, "is gradually being depleted." Russian government bonds have fallen amid war-spending plans, with yields reaching approximately **15%** — a market signal of distrust.

*These Russian economic figures are simultaneously terrifying and reassuring. Terrifying because they show an economy sinking yet continuing to finance a destructive war. Reassuring because they point to an unsustainable trajectory. An economy that devotes 70% of its tax revenues to defense, with an $80 billion deficit, a one-third drop in refining production, and bond yields at 15% — that is an economy walking toward a wall. The question is when it will hit it.*

## The ELOU-AVT-6 and international law: a legitimate military target?

### The legal framework for strikes on energy infrastructure

The question of the legitimacy of Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries resurfaces regularly in legal and diplomatic debates. International humanitarian law — specifically **Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions** — prohibits attacks against civilian property with no direct military value. But it permits strikes against **dual-use targets**: installations that serve both civilian and military purposes.

A refinery that produces aviation kerosene used by Russia's air force, diesel for armored vehicles, and gasoline for military transport falls unambiguously into the dual-use category. International jurisprudence and Western military manuals confirm this. What is prohibited is striking purely civilian installations, or deliberately targeting civilian populations. What is permitted is neutralizing the industrial production capacity that directly fuels the enemy's war effort.

### The comparison that illuminates: what Russia does to Ukraine

To put this debate in perspective, consider what **Russia** has systematically done to Ukraine's energy infrastructure since the start of the war. Massive strikes on Ukrainian thermal and hydroelectric power plants, leaving millions of civilians without electricity and heat in winter. The deliberate destruction of the **Kakhovka** dam. Repeated bombardment of electrical substations. These strikes explicitly aim to demoralize the civilian population and disrupt the Ukrainian economy — a goal that goes far beyond neutralizing military targets.

Ukraine, in striking **Kapotnya** and the **Ufa** refineries, is targeting installations that directly supply fuel to Russian military operations. It is not hitting Moscow's hospital power plants. It is not destroying Russian cities' water systems. The difference in method and intent is fundamental, and it deserves to be underlined in a debate that sometimes tends to treat aggressor and defender symmetrically.

*The moral asymmetry in this debate makes me angry. Every Ukrainian strike on a Russian refinery gets examined under a microscope, international law is cited, proportionality is questioned. Fair enough — it's the right debate. But where was that rigor when Russia was systematically destroying Ukraine's electrical grid, condemning entire families to cold and darkness through entire winters? This asymmetry in critical scrutiny is not neutral — it privileges the comfort of analysis over the reality of Ukrainian suffering.*

## Russia's oil industry: a sector brought to its knees

### An aging industrial base ill-suited for war

Russia's refining industry suffers from a structural problem that predates even the Ukrainian strikes: the **aging of its facilities**. Most of Russia's large refineries were built during the Soviet era, in the 1960s and 1970s. They have been partially modernized since, but remain technologically behind Western standards. Sanctions imposed after **2022** have cut off access to Western refining technologies, spare parts, and specialized equipment.

In this context, repairing an **ELOU-AVT-6** unit like the one at **Kapotnya** is not straightforward. Some critical components can no longer be imported from Europe or the United States. **Russia** must either manufacture them domestically — which takes time and requires specific industrial capacity — or import them from **China**, **India**, or other alternative suppliers, with all the delays and added costs that entails. The estimated minimum six-month downtime may prove optimistic.

### Sanctions as a vulnerability multiplier

Western sanctions, even imperfect, have considerably complicated the maintenance and modernization of Russia's oil industry. The **EU** has just extended its sanctions by an additional year — through **2027** — after renewing them for an unprecedented duration on **June 19, 2026**. It is simultaneously preparing its **21st sanctions package** according to **Daily Finland** on **June 27, 2026**. And the **Baltic states** and **Poland** are pushing for an accelerated oil embargo.

This combination — direct Ukrainian strikes on refineries, sanctions on technologies and equipment, diplomatic pressure for an oil embargo — creates a scissors effect on Russia's oil industry. It can neither quickly repair its damaged installations, nor modernize those still running, nor freely sell its output on global markets. This is a **triple constraint** from which exit is difficult without capitulation or major political change.

*The conjunction of Ukrainian strikes and Western sanctions on Russia's oil industry is one of the rare examples of genuine strategic coherence from the pro-Ukraine coalition. Kyiv hits the installations; the West cuts off the replacement technologies. The result: an industry that can neither function normally nor repair itself effectively. That is what I call a winning strategy — provided everyone holds the line, including the European states still hesitating on the oil embargo.*

## Repercussions on Russia's military air fleet

### Kerosene: the fuel of Russia's air war

Among all the products that **Kapotnya** can no longer produce, **aviation kerosene** deserves particular attention. Russia's military aviation — **Su-24M**, **Su-30SM2**, **Su-34**, **Su-35**, **Kh-22** and **Kh-101** cruise missiles — consumes kerosene in industrial quantities. Each Russian missile or glide bomb strike on Ukraine burns tons of kerosene. The operational tempo of the Russian air force is directly correlated to available kerosene volumes.

Russia's air force operates from airfields sometimes thousands of kilometers from the Ukrainian front — in **Siberia**, the **Urals**, the **Far East**. Each sortie involves not only the fuel for the mission itself, but also the transit fuel for ferrying aircraft to operational areas. Kerosene stock pressure, combined with reduced refining production, creates real operational constraints for Russia's military aviation — even if a complete stockout remains a distant prospect.

### Russian military logistics under cumulative pressure

Diesel — another product **Kapotnya** can no longer supply — fuels **T-90** tanks, **BMP** infantry fighting vehicles, logistics transport trucks, and rear-base generators. In a war that consumes equipment at an industrial pace, diesel shortages translate directly into reduced mobility, slower equipment rotation, and tension in the forward logistics chain.

**Russia** still has significant stockpiles and other production capacity. A single strike on one refinery — even one as important as **Kapotnya** — does not halt the war machine overnight. But it weakens it, slows it, makes it more expensive to operate. And in a war of attrition like the one playing out in Ukraine, this type of progressive degradation is precisely what Ukraine's strategy is designed to produce.

*I want to be precise here to avoid the opposite excess: a refinery going offline will not stop the Russian army tomorrow morning. Russia has stockpiles, other refineries, compensation capacity. It would be analytical hubris to predict an immediate logistical collapse. What I am saying is that every destroyed refinery is an additional pressure point in a system already under constraint. And pressure points eventually weigh, slowly but surely.*

## Lessons from the strike campaign for future military doctrine

### A model that other militaries will study

Ukraine's campaign of strikes on Russian refineries is becoming a case study for contemporary military doctrine. It illustrates how a militarily weaker power can impose significant economic costs on a more powerful adversary by targeting its critical industrial infrastructure with long-range drones. This model will be studied at military academies, analyzed at defense think tanks, and integrated into the strategic planning of many nations.

The **NATO summit in Ankara**, **July 7-8, 2026**, will be an opportunity for allies to share Ukrainian lessons on the offensive use of drones. **Rutte** explicitly mentioned this before the **Atlantic Council** on **June 25**: the Alliance is learning from Ukraine's experience, particularly in the area of drones and counter-drones. The war in Ukraine has accelerated the transformation of Western military doctrines by a decade.

### Ukraine's drone production industry: growing fast

To run this campaign, **Ukraine** has built a remarkable drone industry. Starting from near zero in **2022**, Ukraine's drone manufacturing sector now produces thousands of units per month, in a range of configurations — reconnaissance drones, short-range strike drones, and now long-range drones capable of hitting targets at **1,300 km** or more. This industry is decentralized, agile, and benefits from the support of Ukraine's tech ecosystem.

The economic model is also militarily interesting. A long-range Ukrainian drone costs a fraction of the price of a cruise missile. It uses little fuel, can carry a payload sufficient to damage an industrial distillation unit, and is hard enough to intercept to penetrate Russian air defenses — even those around **Moscow**. This cost-effectiveness ratio is spectacularly favorable to Ukraine.

*Ukraine's drone industry is one of the great success stories of this war, and it gets far less international attention than it deserves. We talk about Western-supplied weapons — HIMARS, Leopard tanks, Storm Shadow missiles. But the drones burning Kapotnya and striking Ufa are Ukrainian drones, made in Ukraine, by Ukrainian engineers working under the constant threat of Russian strikes. That is an extraordinary industrial and human achievement.*

## Russian domestic politics: can Putin hide the damage indefinitely?

### The domestic political cost of burning refineries

For **Vladimir Putin**, Ukrainian strikes on refineries create a delicate internal political problem. Since the start of the war, the regime has carefully maintained the illusion that the war is happening "over there," in Ukraine, and that life in **Russia** remains normal. Price controls on fuel, state subsidies, censorship of bad news — everything has been mobilized to insulate the Russian population from the economic consequences of the war.

But refineries burn, and the residents of **Moscow**, **Bashkiria**, and the affected regions see the smoke. They live through mobile internet blackouts during drone alerts. They read on foreign networks — despite illegal VPNs — that the refinery in their city is offline for at least a year. Information seeps through. And every piece of information that seeps through is a blow to the official narrative of a "victorious" war with no domestic consequences.

### Social tensions in Russia's regions

Russia's **regions** are in a precarious financial position. Data published in **June 2026** reveal that they are "drowning in debt" under the growing burden of war-related expenditure — compensation for families of killed soldiers, social assistance, maintaining public services despite financial transfers to the federal military budget. This regional financial pressure is accompanied by latent discontent over military mobilizations.

In this context, a strike on a regional refinery such as the one in **Ufa** is not just a military event — it is a local political event. It reminds **Bashkiria's** residents that the war is here, on their soil, in their economy. And it raises questions the regime would prefer to leave unanswered: why did Russian defenses not stop these drones? Why are our region's refineries a target? How far will this go?

*I am not going to predict an uprising in Russia. I never have, and I refuse to fall into that analytical trap. But I note that the Russian population's silent resignation in the face of war has limits. When refineries burn in the hinterland, when fuel becomes scarce and expensive, when family members don't come back from the front — resignation eventually wears thin. Not spectacularly, not suddenly, but steadily.*

## The role of European sanctions alongside the strikes

### The 21st sanctions package: economic pressure continues

The European Union extended its sanctions against **Russia** by an additional year in June **2026** — an unusually long duration reflecting reinforced political resolve. It is simultaneously preparing its **21st sanctions package**, according to information published on **June 27, 2026**. This package is expected to include additional measures on refining technologies, industrial equipment, and potentially a strengthening of the oil price cap regime.

Sanctions have an undeniable effect on Russia's ability to repair and modernize its refineries. They create what economists call a **"technological bottleneck effect"**: even if **Russia** theoretically has the financial resources to rebuild a damaged refinery, it does not easily have access to specialized equipment, industrial control software, chemical catalysts, or precision components that make a modern refinery function.

### The Baltic states and Poland: the allies pushing hardest

The **Baltic states** — **Estonia**, **Latvia**, **Lithuania** — and **Poland** are the **EU** members pushing most actively for a complete oil embargo on **Russia**. According to the **Kyiv Post** of **June 27, 2026**, the Balts are pressing **Brussels** to accelerate the embargo process, arguing that current sanctions, even reinforced, still leave too much oil revenue accessible to **Moscow**.

This pressure from the EU's most exposed members is crucial. They live on the border with **Russia**, they endured Soviet occupation, they understand viscerally what the **Moscow** threat means. Their insistence on harder sanctions is not ideology — it is geography. And their voice deserves to be heard in Western capitals that sometimes manage the war in Ukraine as a distant geopolitical disruption rather than an immediate existential threat.

*I want to pay tribute to the Baltic states, which consistently do more than one would expect of small countries with limited economies and traumatic histories. They spend above 2% of GDP on defense, they push for harder sanctions, they host Allied troops, they back Ukraine without ambiguity. And meanwhile, some large Western European countries are still debating whether it is wise to irritate Moscow. History will judge this asymmetry of courage.*

## The reconstruction timeline: what 2027 really means

### Six months minimum, possibly much longer

The estimate of "not before **2027**" for **Kapotnya's** restart rests on several converging factors. The first step is damage assessment — how many units are affected, in what condition, which components are salvageable. This assessment alone takes several weeks in an environment under active aerial surveillance. Then comes the equipment procurement phase, considerably complicated by sanctions.

Then comes the physical reconstruction — industrial welding, equipment installation, control system fitting, pressure and safety testing. An **ELOU-AVT-6** unit of this scale is not assembled like flat-pack furniture. Each step requires qualified specialists, precise materials, and time. The estimate of a minimum six months before restart is probably conservative — given current sanctions conditions and limited technology access, twelve to eighteen months would be an equally plausible scenario.

### Every month offline is a month of additional pressure

For **Ukraine**, every month that **Kapotnya** sits offline is a month of additional economic pressure on **Russia**. It is a month of missing aviation kerosene, a month of insufficient diesel, a month of reduced oil revenues for **Rosneft** and the federal budget. Not spectacular, not instantaneous — but real and cumulative. Ukraine's refinery strike strategy is a long-term degradation strategy, not an immediate collapse strategy.

And if **Kapotnya** is eventually rebuilt in **2027**? There is no guarantee it will not be struck again. Neither can the **Ufa** plants count on peace. Ukraine's long-range drone campaign will not stop because **Russia** has repaired one installation. It will continue, adapt, find new targets. **Moscow** must therefore contemplate a new reality: its refineries, wherever they are, are now permanent targets. And protecting all those installations simultaneously is beyond its air defense capacity.

*The question I ask myself, without a certain answer, is this: will Russia eventually decide to strike Western oil infrastructure — in the North Sea, the Gulf, somewhere — to "balance" its losses? I do not believe it, because that would trigger a categorical NATO response. But the fact that the question arises says something about the nervousness that these Ukrainian strikes are creating in Moscow.*

## The international community facing consequences on oil markets

### Disruptions in Russian supply and global prices

Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries have ripple effects on global oil markets. The reduction in Russian refined product output — by one-third according to NATO's Secretary General — affects supply available on Asian markets and in countries that continue importing Russian petroleum products. This supply tightening creates upward pressure on refined product prices in those markets.

For economies still dependent on Russian oil — particularly some Asian and African countries — this supply reduction means higher prices and less reliable supply. It is a collateral effect of Ukraine's strategy that sometimes complicates diplomatic relations, as some Global South countries are tempted to criticize Ukraine for the oil instability it generates. But it would be dishonest to lay this responsibility on **Kyiv** rather than on **Moscow**, which started the war.

### OPEC+ and production adjustments facing Russian disruptions

**OPEC+**, which includes **Russia** in its production agreements, must manage an unprecedented situation: one of its members is seeing its production and refining capacity degraded by ongoing military strikes. OPEC+ quota decisions are theoretically based on declared production capacities of members. If Russian capacity is structurally reduced by Ukrainian strikes, this changes the internal balances within the cartel.

This international economic dimension of the Ukrainian-Russian energy war goes beyond simple military considerations. It touches on global oil geopolitical balances, on the relationship between **Russia** and its OPEC+ partners, and on **Moscow's** ability to honor its export commitments. It is an economic war on multiple levels, of which **Kapotnya** is only one of many theaters.

*Oil geopolitics is rarely simple, and this war complicates it further. I acknowledge that Russian supply disruptions have consequences for countries not directly involved in the conflict — many of them poor nations dependent on cheap energy. This is a reality I take seriously. But the solution is not to stop Ukrainian strikes — it is to stop the war. And it is Putin, not Zelensky, who has the power to do that.*

## The nerve war: how strikes transform Russia's industrial morale

### When the rear becomes the front

**Russia** built its war consent on an implicit promise: the ordinary lives of Russians would not be disrupted. The bombs fell on **Ukraine**, the refineries ran in **Bashkiria**, the fuel taps stayed open in **Moscow**. This psychological boundary between the front and the rear — the fundamental condition for the war's acceptability to the Russian public — is eroding. The workers at **Kapotnya** and **Ufa** refineries now know they work at **active military targets**.

This shift in perception has concrete effects: absenteeism, slower repairs, difficulty recruiting specialized technicians for positions now considered dangerous. None of these consequences can be precisely quantified from the outside, but their logic is undeniable. Fear, too, carries an **economic cost**. And **Putin** cannot decree it out of existence with a press release from **Bashkiria's** governor.

### Engineering resilience under constant pressure

On the Ukrainian side, the capacity to maintain deep strikes on installations as distant as **Ufa** — at **1,300 kilometers** — demands remarkable logistical engineering. Programming a drone for such a long flight, maintaining sufficient precision on target, ensuring post-strike feedback — all of this mobilizes entire teams under permanent war conditions. This is not improvisation. It is the product of years of development, corrected mistakes, doctrine refined in the **fire of necessity**.

The Ukrainian engineers who design these drones often work in camouflaged workshops, under the constant threat of Russian strikes on Ukrainian industrial infrastructure. This reality — striking deep into enemy territory while absorbing the enemy's own blows — is the very definition of **modern asymmetric warfare**. Ukraine has mastered it with a sophistication that few regular armies would have achieved under such conditions.

*What strikes me in the industrial history of this war is that Ukraine transformed its structural weakness — the absence of a large centralized defense industry — into a tactical asset. No single large factory to destroy. Hundreds of scattered, invisible, resilient workshops. This is a lesson that Western military planners should inscribe in their doctrines: decentralization is not a sign of poverty — it is a survival strategy.*

## Russian exports under constraint: when oil funds the war less efficiently

### Sanctions and strikes as a scissors effect

The economic effectiveness of Ukraine's strategy against Russian refineries is multiplied by its synergy with **Western sanctions**. Sanctions limit **Russia's** ability to obtain the equipment needed for repairs — advanced refining technologies, specialized spare parts, industrial software. Ukrainian strikes create the damage that these sanctions prevent from being efficiently repaired. It is a perfect scissors effect: **Ukraine** cuts, the **West** prevents healing.

According to data published by **NATO** Secretary General **Mark Rutte** on **June 25, 2026**, Russian refining production has fallen by **one-third**. This figure integrates the cumulative effect of repeated strikes on installations that cannot be repaired at normal speed, due to a lack of Western technological components under embargo. The combination of both pressure vectors creates a growing structural deficit in Russia's energy chain.

### Oil revenues and the growing budget constraint

Russia's **budget deficit**, already exceeding **$80 billion** according to **United24 Media** of **June 23, 2026**, is directly aggravated by reduced refining capacity. Fewer refined products means fewer profitable exports, lower tax revenue from oil income, and greater pressure on a budget already dedicating more than **70% of its tax revenues** to defense according to **Rutte**. The spiral is dizzying: war is expensive, oil revenues fall, and the deficit grows.

To finance this deficit, **Russia** is issuing debt at rates markets consider risky — Russian bond yields are flirting with **15%**, a sign of a high risk premium. At this pace, Russia's war debt becomes increasingly expensive to roll over. This is not a prospect of immediate collapse — **Russia** has reserves and adaptation mechanisms. But it is an **unsustainable trajectory** over the medium term.

*I want to be honest about the limits of my economic analysis: I am not a specialist in hydrocarbon economics, and data on the Russian economy are often opaque or manipulated. What I can say with confidence is that the direction of the trends is clear — falling production, growing budget deficit, gasoline imports — even if the exact figures remain uncertain. The direction, not the detail, is what matters strategically.*

## Conclusion: Kapotnya and Ufa, milestones in an economic war that has only just begun

### The silent weapon changing the balance of power

The **Kapotnya** refinery is burning, and it will not restart before **2027**. The **Ufa** plants were struck at **1,300 km** from Ukraine. Russian refining production has fallen by one-third. **Russia** is going to import gasoline by sea. These facts, taken together, paint the portrait of an economic war that Ukraine is waging with growing effectiveness against the industrial infrastructure sustaining the Russian war effort. This is not a conventional war. It is a drone-driven economic attrition war, supported by sanctions, producing real and cumulative effects on **Russia's** military capacity.

Ukraine cannot win this war in a single blow. It knows this. But it can make every month of war more costly for **Russia**, progressively degrade its industrial capacity, exhaust its financial resources, and force **Putin** into increasingly painful choices. This is the logic of **Zelensky's** **40-day** operation — not a promise of quick victory, but a mechanism of methodical exhaustion. And the smoke over **Kapotnya** proves it is working.

### What the West must understand before the Ankara summit

Two weeks before the **NATO summit in Ankara**, the message from Ukrainian strikes on refineries should resonate in every conference room: Ukraine holds, Ukraine innovates, Ukraine strikes. It deserves support commensurate with its courage — not just statements of intent. The goal of **5% of GDP in defense spending** that **Rutte** wants to enshrine at Ankara, additional arms deliveries, the oil embargo the Baltic states are demanding — all of this must be put on the table with the same urgency that **Zelensky** brings to his drones.

The smoke from **Kapotnya** and **Ufa** is not just the mark of Ukrainian resistance. It is also an invitation to the **West** to rise to the moment. Not to admire Ukrainian courage from a distance, but to contribute to it with resources, weapons, and courageous political decisions. **Ukraine** is doing its part. It is time for the **West** to do its own.

**By Maxime Marquette, columnist**

## Columnist's transparency note

### Editorial stance

I am not a journalist but a **columnist and analyst**. My expertise lies in observing and analysing the geopolitical, economic and strategic dynamics that shape our world. My work is to take political strategies apart, to understand global economic movements, to put the decisions of international actors in context and to offer analytical perspectives on the changes that are redefining our societies.

I do not claim the cold objectivity of traditional journalism, which stops at reporting facts. **I claim analytical clarity**, rigorous interpretation and a deep understanding of the complex issues that concern us all. My role is to give meaning to the facts, to place them in their historical and strategic context, and to offer a critical reading of events.

### Method and sources

This text keeps the basic distinction between **verified facts and interpretive analysis**. The rule never changes: a factual claim is published only when a verifiable source supports it, and the sources this article actually used are listed under **Sources**, never here.

**Primary source families** used by the publication, when the story has them: official statements from governments and international institutions, public statements by political leaders, reports from intergovernmental organisations, dispatches from recognised international news agencies.

**Secondary source families**: specialised publications, internationally recognised news media, analyses from established research institutions, reports from industry organisations.

When an article cites statistical, economic or geopolitical data, it comes from the institutions that produce it (intergovernmental organisations, central banks, national statistics offices), and the exact institution is named under **Sources**.

### Nature of the analysis

The analyses, interpretations and perspectives in the analytical sections of this article are a **critical, contextual synthesis** based on the information available, the trends observed and the expert comments cited in the sources consulted.

My role is to interpret these facts, to set them in the context of today's geopolitical and economic dynamics, and to give them a coherent meaning within the larger story of the changes shaping our time. These analyses reflect expertise built through continuous observation of international affairs and an understanding of the strategic mechanisms that drive global actors.

This article describes a documented state of affairs on its publication date, not a prediction: later developments may shift its outlook. No update is promised in advance; when an article is corrected or completed, the change is dated in the text.

*A refinery offline until 2027. Drone strikes reaching 1,300 kilometers into Russian territory. Ukrainian forces doing with ingenuity what NATO couldn't do with doctrine. I keep coming back to the asymmetry: Ukraine is spending its last reserves of human courage and industrial creativity to fight a war that Russia started and the West enabled through decades of wishful thinking about Putin's intentions. The least Ankara can do is build the industrial backbone that makes the next Ukrainian generation's survival less contingent on Western hesitation.*

## Sources

### Primary sources

- [Militarnyi / Reuters — Moscow refinery unlikely to resume operations after drone strikes until 2027 — June 24, 2026](https://militarnyi.com/en/news/moscow-refinery-unlikely-to-resume-operations-after-drone-strikes-until-2027-reuters/)

- [Euromaidan Press — Drones flew 1,300 km to Russia's Ufa, struck Bashneft refineries — June 25, 2026](https://euromaidanpress.com/2026/06/25/drones-flew-1300-km-to-russias-ufa-then-struck-bashneft-refineries/)

- [Newsweek — Drone strike on Kapotnya district, second attack in one week — June 25, 2026](https://www.newsweek.com/putin-russia-oil-gold-ukraine-war-12118804)

### Secondary sources

- [NATO / Atlantic Council — Rutte: Russian economy, refining production down one-third — June 25, 2026](https://www.nato.int/en/news-and-events/events/transcripts/2026/06/25/atlantic-council-front-page-conversation-with-nato-secretary-general-mark-rutte)

- [United24 Media — Russia's budget deficit tops $80 billion — June 23, 2026](https://united24media.com/world/russias-budget-deficit-tops-80-billion-despite-kremlin-stability-claims-20083)

- [Kyiv Post — Baltic states press EU for accelerated oil embargo; EU extends sanctions one year — June 27, 2026](https://www.kyivpost.com/post/79112)

- [Euromaidan Press — The EU maintains its full Russia economic sanctions wall through 2027 — June 26, 2026](https://euromaidanpress.com/2026/06/26/trade-banks-energy-crypto-the-eu-keeps-its-full-russia-economic-sanctions-wall-standing-to-2027/)

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Source: Maxime Marquette, MadMax. When citing, name the author and link https://mad-max.co/en/article/decryptage-raffinerie-de-moscou-paralysee-jusqu-en-2027-l-arme-silencieuse-qui-a