Why this score Russia's deputy prime minister for energy and former energy minister; authoritative as the primary record of Russian government energy decisions and, unusually for a Russian official, has conceded unfavourable facts on the record — he announced fuel-product imports in July 2026. That makes his admissions against interest usable and his reassurances not: his characterisations of the situation as improving have repeatedly preceded further shutdowns. Set at the Russian-official band, above the pure spokesman tier.
Russia is ready to increase diesel supplies in October, and exports are expected to rise in November and December as refineries resume operations after maintenance.
Unverified — the horizon has not passed. Reported by RFE/RL in paraphrase, not as a direct quote. He attributes the outages to maintenance; on October 10 an industry tally listed seven large refineries as halted and recorded no restart (IntelliNews).
The situation is changing every day. We're constantly monitoring it and are making decisions at our headquarters. We're gathering the federal headquarters with the regions and all of our companies twice a week.
Still unverified a week on. Putin said on 3 September repairs would finish 'in the very near future', again naming no plant and no volume; ISW judges them costly and drawn out, and Ukraine's General Staff says Kstovo remains suspended.