🇷🇺🔥 RUSSIA’S REFINERIES ARE BEING HIT FASTER THAN THEY CAN RECOVER This is not a Ukrainian battlefield estimate. It comes from an International Energy Agency analysis published on September 17. By the end of August 2026, only five major Russian refineries had never been struck. Across the first eight months of the year, a refinery was hit on average once every three days. Some facilities have reportedly been targeted as many as 15 times since 2022. The impact is showing in output. Russia had 6.5 million barrels per day of installed refining capacity, but only 3.8 million barrels per day were running in June, around 30% below the previous year. Gasoline production was down 20% year-on-year. Diesel production was down almost 30%. Moscow responded with increasingly severe export restrictions: gasoline exports were banned in April, kerosene followed in mid-June, reportedly for the first time in Russian history, and diesel exports were halted on July 8. Then came the financial cost. Between April and August, the Russian state reportedly poured 1.5 trillion rubles, roughly $18 billion, into subsidies for refiners. Five months. $18 billion. Meanwhile, strikes kept returning roughly every three days. Ukraine’s long-range campaign is no longer measured only by explosions at individual facilities. The pressure is now visible in refining volumes, fuel exports and the amount of money Moscow is spending to keep the system functioning.