Updated Oct 17

Russia's War Economy

The United States has switched off its own new sanctions law against Russia. On October 16, two days before the deadline, Donald Trump signed an order setting the law’s tariffs — 500 per cent on Russian goods, 100 per cent on the five largest buyers of Russian oil and gas and on the top facilitators of evasion — and waiving them in the same order, along with nearly all its sanctions on people and banks. The waivers have no end date. Sanctions under earlier executive orders stay in force, as does the Treasury licence of October 9 allowing Russian diesel sales until April 7, 2027. Lawmakers of both parties objected; Congress is in recess until after the November 3 midterms.

What Russia can sell is now limited less by sanctions than by its refineries. Moscow partly lifted its diesel export ban on October 10, and one tanker of about 40,000 tonnes loaded at Primorsk on October 13, against the 300,000 tonnes Trump said Russia would supply at once. The IEA says the easing will barely move the market, because drone damage, not the ban, limits exports.

The budget is still strained: the January–September deficit of 5.186 trillion roubles exceeds the 3.786 trillion allowed for all of 2026.

New Oct 17

The whole story5 chapters

The state of it — as of October 17, 2026

₽5.186trn

federal deficit, January–September, against ₽3.786trn allowed for all of 2026

3.8m bpd

Russian refining in August, against 5.3–5.5m normally needed

57%

of Russia's seaborne oil carried by sanctioned shadow tankers in September

Today

NewOct 16, 2026

Trump Waives the Sanctions Law Two Days Before It Was Due to Bite

On October 16, two days before the deadline, Donald Trump signed an order that sets the tariffs of the September Russia sanctions law — 500 per cent on Russian goods, and 100 per cent on the five largest buyers of Russian oil and gas and on the top five facilitators of evasion — and in the same order waives them, together with nearly all of the law’s sanctions on people and banks. The waivers have no end date and rest on a certification to Congress that they serve the national interest; sanctions under earlier executive orders stay in force. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the president wanted 60 days to study the effect on energy prices, a period the order does not contain. Republicans including Thom Tillis, Ted Cruz and Don Bacon objected; Congress is in recess until after the November 3 midterms.

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The White HousePolitico EuropeNBC NewsCBC NewsAl Jazeera EnglishEuromaidan Press

Earlier this month

Oct 14, 2026

The IEA: Russia Cannot Export Diesel It Can No Longer Make

Russia partially lifted its diesel export ban from October 10 under its deal with Washington, and a tanker of about 40,000 tonnes loaded at Primorsk on October 13. The International Energy Agency’s October report, published October 14, says the easing “is unlikely to materially alter the global gasoil market balance as the current export constraints stem from a lack of operational Russian refinery capacity”, and that Russian gasoil production and exports “have slumped in recent months due to increasing damage to refineries from Ukrainian drones”. Combined Middle Eastern and Russian net gasoil exports fell 1.3 million barrels a day in September, to 820,000. It is the campaign’s effect stated by a party with no interest in it.

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International Energy AgencyThe Moscow TimesGovernment of the Russian Federation

NewOct 13, 2026

Eleven Senators Ask Trump to Revoke the Diesel Licence and Use the Sanctions Law

Eleven senators of both parties, among them the Republicans Thom Tillis, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski and Mitch McConnell, wrote to Trump on October 13 asking him to ‘withdraw from this agreement, rescind General License No. 135, and execute the authorities’ of the September sanctions law, calling the diesel deal ‘a gift to our adversary and a betrayal of our Allies’. Lawfare notes that the law’s October 18 deadline for tariffs on major buyers of Russian crude does not cover diesel. No source reports any tariff imposed under the law. Two days earlier, seven senators of both parties had said the imports run “directly counter” to the 2022 law banning Russian energy imports, and that the administration had not given Congress the explanation the statute requires.

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United States SenateLawfareKyiv PostUnited States Senate

Oct 12, 2026

The EU Lists 1,569 Russian Arms Suppliers and Their Chiefs, Its Largest Round Yet

EU foreign ministers adopted asset freezes and travel bans on October 12 against 826 Russian companies in the military-industrial supply chain and 743 of their chief executives, which the Council called ‘the single largest set of listings ever agreed by the EU’. It said the regime now covers close to 4,600 listings. By the Council’s account the companies turn over at least €20 billion a year and employ more than 250,000 people; Kallas said over half the listings target the supply chain for ballistic missiles. A separate act listed 77 people over the September Duma vote in occupied Ukraine.

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European Council / Council of the EUAgence EuropeMorgan Lewis

Oct 9, 2026

Nine Months of Spending Have Already Outrun Russia’s Deficit Plan for the Year

Russia’s federal deficit reached 5.186 trillion roubles, 2.2 per cent of GDP, in January to September on preliminary official figures — past the 3.786 trillion the budget law allowed for all of 2026. Spending rose 14.5 per cent; revenue rose 10. Oil and gas brought in 17.2 per cent less than a year before — a weaker dollar and larger payments to domestic refiners, the ministry said — while non-oil revenue rose 18.8 per cent and VAT receipts 27.4. September alone ran a surplus of about 609 billion roubles, by Interfax’s calculation. From October 7 the ministry is buying 12.7 billion roubles of currency and gold a day, five times the previous month’s pace.

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InterfaxInterfaxXinhua News Agency

Oct 9, 2026

I have just concluded a highly successful discussion with President Vladimir Putin, of Russia, wherein it was agreed that Russia will immediately supply over 300,000 Tons of Diesel Fuel to the American and Global Marketplace, another 500,000 Tons during the month of November, and 1,000,000 Tons immediately thereafter

— Donald Trump

Not yet checked

Unverified — November has not passed. Russia eased its export ban from October 10 and a 40,000-tonne cargo loaded at Primorsk on October 13. The IEA says export capacity is limited by refinery damage, not the ban.

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The HillThe Moscow TimesInternational Energy Agency

Oct 9, 2026

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.

— Alexander Novak

Not yet checked

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).

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Radio Free Europe/Radio LibertyIntelliNews (bne IntelliNews)

Oct 9, 2026

Washington Waives Sanctions on Russian Diesel. The Open Question Is Whether Russia Can Make It.

After a call with Vladimir Putin on October 9, Donald Trump said Russia would ‘immediately supply over 300,000 Tons of Diesel Fuel to the American and Global Marketplace’, 500,000 more in November and a million after that, depending on the condition of Russia’s refineries. The Treasury issued General License 135 the same day, authorising the sale and import of Russian diesel, including into the United States, until April 7, 2027, three weeks after Trump signed a law authorising tariffs of up to 100 per cent on the largest buyers of Russian oil. The Kremlin confirmed only a ‘readiness to supply oil and oil products’. Kpler’s Michelle Brouhard asked ‘where are they going to get the diesel from?’: Kpler records 2.6 million tonnes a month leaving by sea before 2025 and almost none since July, and data cited by the Financial Times has refineries at about 60 per cent of capacity. An unnamed Ukrainian official told the FT: ‘We will burn [Russian] refineries.’ The Republican congressman Michael McCaul said lifting the sanctions ‘will only fund the Kremlin’s war machine’. Diesel futures fell about 4 per cent; American diesel stood at $6.28 a gallon, with midterms on November 3.

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U.S. Department of the TreasuryU.S. Department of the TreasuryPBS NewsHourCNBCThe HillAl Jazeera EnglishRadio Free Europe/Radio LibertyKyiv PostInstitute for the Study of WarIntelliNews (bne IntelliNews)

Sep 30, 2026

Russia Extends Its Diesel Export Ban to the End of October

Russia’s government extended its ban on diesel exports by fuel producers to October 31, citing harvest demand. Bans on diesel exports by non-producers and on gasoline run through January, and on jet fuel through November. Rosstat put average gasoline at 78.51 roubles a litre on September 14, up 21 per cent since the start of the year, as relayed by The Moscow Times. More regions have brought back rationing, and the anti-monopoly service said on September 30 it was investigating 58 cases of suspected price gouging. The government did not mention the refinery strikes.

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The Moscow Times

Sep 30, 2026

Russia’s Next Budget: a Quarter More for Defence, Less for Schools and Hospitals

The government sent the Duma a 2027–2029 budget on September 30 that puts defence at 17.1 trillion roubles next year — about 27 per cent above what had been planned for 2027 and more than a third of all federal spending. Against those earlier plans, education loses about 6 per cent and healthcare and social policy about 7 each. The draft revises this year’s deficit to 7.345 trillion roubles, 3.2 per cent of GDP and nearly double the 3.786 trillion in the budget law, and projects 5.443 trillion for 2027 on oil at $50 a barrel. State debt reaches 21.7 per cent of GDP, above the 20 per cent the finance ministry had called safe. The exiled outlet Vyorstka counts a record 34.9 per cent of spending as classified. Four days after polls closed the ministry proposed new taxes; utility tariffs, postponed from July, rose on October 1.

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The Moscow TimesKyiv PostInterfaxThe Jamestown FoundationThe Kyiv Independent

Sep 30, 2026

Russia’s Export Earnings Hold Flat, and Most of Its Oil Now Sails on Sanctioned Tankers

Russia earned about €625 million a day from fossil-fuel exports in September, roughly the same as in August, though volumes fell 6 per cent, the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air calculates. Crude earnings fell 8 per cent. Sanctioned shadow tankers carried 57 per cent of its seaborne oil. Oil-product loadings were about half their level a year earlier, and Russia imported 234,000 tonnes of products by sea, the second-largest monthly volume since 2022, against an average of 9,000 tonnes a month from 2022 to June 2026.

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Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA)

Sep 18, 2026

The Graham Sanctions Bill Is Law; What It Imposes Is Left to the President

The House passed the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act on September 16 by 262 to 159, with 58 Democrats in favour and seven Republicans against; the Senate had cleared it 86–11 in August, and the President signed it two days later. It authorises tariffs of up to 100 per cent on countries buying Russian oil and gas, China and India foremost, and sanctions Russian officials, companies and financial institutions. The White House’s notice says the law “authorizes and expands statutory sanctions, tariffs, and prohibitions on Russia”; it announces no measure taken under it. The tariffs are an authority handed to the President, not an instruction; Don Beyer, voting against, called it a loophole with ‘no guardrails or oversight, and no expiration.’ Whether it costs Russia’s budget anything depends on whether that authority is used.

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The White HouseNPRReuters

Sep 17, 2026

Russia Bans Its Own Diesel Exports, and Rations at Home

Russia banned gasoline exports in April, jet fuel in mid-June, and diesel on July 8 — its first diesel export ban ever, in a country that had been exporting roughly half its diesel and gasoil. The ban has since been extended twice, most recently to September 30. By the end of June fuel shortages were reported across 92 per cent of Russian regions, two-thirds of which introduced rationing; Rosstat put gasoline up more than 19 per cent and diesel about 18 per cent since January. The bans are Russia’s own acts, and so not in dispute.

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International Energy Agency

Sep 17, 2026

What the War Costs the Side Running It: a Deficit Already Past Last Year’s Whole

Russian fiscal revenues for January to August came in almost 17 per cent below the same period of 2025, at 5 trillion roubles, while the federal deficit reached 5.8 trillion roubles for those eight months — up 150 per cent year on year, and already larger than the 5.6 trillion recorded for the whole of 2025. Between April and August Russian oil companies drew 1.5 trillion roubles, about 18 billion dollars, in subsidies, largely through the damper mechanism that compensates refiners when export prices outrun domestic ones. The figures are Russia’s own finance ministry’s, relayed by the IEA: a state’s accounting of its own position, against its own interest.

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International Energy Agency

This quarter

Sep 15, 2026

Half of Russia’s Biggest Diesel Refineries Are Cutting Back, Kirishi Is Shut

Reuters, calculating from fuel-market participants rather than from either government, reports that three of Russia’s six largest diesel-producing refineries — Omsk, Kirishi, TANECO, Volgograd, NORSI and Perm, together about half of national diesel output — have sharply cut or halted production in September after drone damage. Kirishi is fully shut. Volgograd and NORSI are running at about a quarter of nameplate capacity. KINEF in Leningrad Oblast, Russia’s second-largest refinery, stopped processing entirely on September 2. Two questions this page has carried for months are answered: Kirishi is down, and Omsk — unconfirmed either way for six cycles — is among those that have cut back.

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ReutersKyiv Post

Sep 5, 2026

Less Energy Money In, More Fuel Money Out, and the Price Held Until the Vote

Russia's federal oil-and-gas revenue was 424 billion roubles in August on the Finance Ministry's own monthly series — the weakest month of 2026 bar January, about 16 percent below August 2025, with seaborne petroleum-product export earnings down 45 percent from July. The budget is simultaneously paying out more: damper payments, which compensate refiners for the gap between export and domestic prices, rose from 113 billion roubles in July to 197 billion in August, partly because importers of gasoline now qualify, so the state is subsidising fuel bought abroad down to Russian prices. The price itself is held before the September 18-20 vote: deputy prime minister Alexander Novak ordered tighter controls at independent filling stations on August 31, sub-Euro-5 sales were legalised, and retail price data restricted.

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Russian Ministry of Finance (Minfin)NV (Novoye Vremya)

Sep 3, 2026

Russian Refiners Miss 60 Percent of Their Exchange Gasoline Contracts

Russian oil companies failed to fulfil about 60 percent of gasoline supply contracts on the St Petersburg exchange between May and September, industry sources told the business daily Kommersant, blaming Ukrainian drone strikes on refineries. About 20 percent of deals ended in default or cancellation and 39 percent went unfilled, a quarter of those past the 30-day shipment window. Lukoil and Rosneft — hit hardest — accounted for 46 and 28 percent of the unfilled volume; producers filled state and defence orders first, leaving the independent stations that are the exchange's main buyers near the back of the queue. It is a Russian commercial read on the campaign's effect, distinct from the pump-availability data of late August.

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Meduza

Sep 3, 2026

Ukrainian strikes are causing economic and other adverse effects on Russian oil refining and fuel exports, but repairs on the remaining damaged facilities will be finished 'in the very near future'.

— Vladimir Putin

Sep 2, 2026

Russia's Three Ways to Fund the War Are Tightening at Once

KSE Institute's August Russia Chartbook shows the state's main routes for covering its budget gap narrowing together. Oil export earnings fell to $13.8 billion in July from $15.8 billion in June. The January–July deficit reached 6.5 trillion roubles — up about 600 billion in July alone and 34 percent above the finance ministry's revised full-year target. Government bond issuance was the lowest since September 2022, with auctions suspended until at least September. The National Wealth Fund's non-liquid assets fell by around 500 billion roubles in a month as Sberbank shares dropped, and 56 of 89 regions ran deficits in the first half.

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Kyiv School of Economics (KSE Institute)The Moscow Times

Aug 29, 2026

The Export Ban Gets Another Month, and Refining Hits a Twenty-Year Low

The Russian Cabinet of Ministers extended its export ban on diesel, marine fuel and gas oils for direct producers from 31 August to 30 September; a general fuel export ban already runs to 31 January 2027. EA Analytics puts August refining at an average 3.8 million barrels a day against the 5.3-5.5 million normally needed for summer and harvest demand, the lowest in over two decades. Petrol production and domestic deliveries fell nearly 20 percent year-on-year over the first three weeks of August, diesel by more than 23. Rosneft's Igor Sechin said the same week that the company is meeting domestic demand.

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Kyiv PostInstitute for the Study of War

Aug 27, 2026

Russia Buys Petrol From a NATO Member, and Rents a Refinery in Kazakhstan

The refinery campaign has pushed Moscow into importing the fuel it used to export. Russia bought 200,000 barrels of petrol from Turkey this week for the first time, moving it from Mersin to the Baltic port of Primorsk aboard a sanctioned tanker, the Wendrix — the fifth seaborne fuel cargo of the summer, after deliveries routed through Egypt from India's Vadinar refinery, about a million barrels in all. It also signed a deal with the Kondensat refinery in western Kazakhstan to process Russian crude abroad and ship 70 percent of the product home, the crude going by rail. Imports from Belarus rose 141-fold in June year on year. Six regions have reimposed petrol rationing, and Orsk is shut. Ukraine struck refineries 18 times in August, matching July's record.

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The Guardian

Aug 27, 2026

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.

— Alexander Novak

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The GuardianInstitute for the Study of WarInstitute for the Study of War

Aug 27, 2026

Half a Million Drivers' Reports Put a Number on What the Refinery Strikes Did

Meduza analysed 478,685 crowdsourced fuel-availability reports covering 25,129 filling stations in 83 Russian regions between 4 July and 23 August, cross-checked against 3.9 million bank card-payment records from Sberbank, T-Bank and Alfa-Bank and against exchange volumes. On 11–13 August petrol could be bought without a queue at 25–33 percent of stations and was present at all at 46–48 percent — worse availability than at the peak of July's first wave. On a fixed panel of 2,176 stations reported on in both periods, supply without a queue fell from 46 to 32 percent; in Moscow it fell from 75 to 30 percent, in Moscow Oblast from 72 to 25. Exchange petrol volumes for 1–20 August ran 55 percent below 2025. Meduza discloses the obvious risk — organised false reporting, which the app's developer says it filters — which is why the bank data is there.

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Meduza

Aug 26, 2026

Russia Has Already Committed Four-Fifths of Its Year's State Contracts

State contracting, defence orders included, ran about 40 percent above last year in the first seven months, reaching 8.44 trillion roubles — 80 percent of the full-year plan with five months to go. That front-loading widened the January-to-July deficit by a further 724 billion roubles in July, to 6.45 trillion or 2.8 percent of GDP. Oil-and-gas revenue is down 16.8 percent at 4.6 trillion; VAT, raised to 22 percent in January, is up 25 percent at 9.8 trillion. Sberbank now expects 7 trillion for the year — revised down from 7.5, still double the government's plan.

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The BellRussian Ministry of Finance (Minfin)

Aug 24, 2026

The Fuel Crisis Crosses the Border into Central Asia

Russians along the Volga now drive hundreds of kilometres into Kazakhstan to fill up, and Kazakh border guards report thwarting hundreds of attempts to carry petrol back, three months after Astana banned exports. Kazakh fuel prices are up 15.6 percent this year. Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, which took up to 90 percent of their petrol from Russia, are rationing: Bishkek has spent about $11.4m on subsidies, Dushanbe has 20-litre limits and signed a mid-August deal for 2.5 million tonnes of Iranian fuel. Uzbekistan is building a two-to-three-month reserve.

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Al Jazeera English

Aug 19, 2026

Russia's Fuel Crisis Reaches Moscow as a 'Second Wave' Forces Rationing and the National Guard onto the Forecourts

Months of Ukrainian strikes on refineries have tipped Russia's summer fuel shortage into what Russian media call a "second wave" — and it has reached the capital the Kremlin most tries to shield. Gazprom Neft reimposed 60-litre limits at Moscow stations and Tatneft capped sales, weeks after briefly easing restrictions across 13 regions. On August 18 gasoline was available at only 28% of Russian stations, down from 41% a week earlier, on the crowd-sourced GdeBENZ data cited by Izvestia. Putin sent Rosgvardia units to gas-station queues, the government weighed banning aromatic-hydrocarbon exports — already worsening a motor-oil shortage — and extended the fuel export ban into early 2027. On August 19 Putin conceded that "external pressure" and "terrorist attacks", the Kremlin's term for the strikes, were denting growth, now near 1%. Ukraine kept hitting refineries, striking the Ufa hub 1,200km away that same day.

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Institute for the Study of WarThe Moscow Times

Aug 17, 2026

EU sanctions have already cost Russia dearly, depriving Russia's war machine of over EUR 1 trillion ($1.16 trillion) and for autumn I am putting forward the most far-reaching sanctions listings since the start of the war. Once adopted, they would immediately raise the total number of sanctioned Russian entities by a third.

— Kaja Kallas Mixed

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UkrinformEuropean PravdaAgence EuropeEuropean Council / Council of the EU

Aug 15, 2026

Novorossiysk Stops Loading Crude, and the Refining Loss Reaches the IEA's Books

The strongest evidence yet that the campaign is doing measurable damage arrived in one week from three directions, none of them Ukrainian. Russia suspended crude exports from the Sheskharis terminal at Novorossiysk and stopped accepting oil into it after the 11-12 August strike, its tanks full — Reuters, from three sources, reaching this record through ISW. Russian Railways then restricted cargo loading at the port from 13 to 22 August, a state operator acting against its own interest. And the International Energy Agency, with no stake in either side's claims, cut its estimate of third-quarter global refinery runs by a further 370,000 barrels a day, naming attacks on Russian refineries alongside Middle East disruption. The two causes are not separated, so this is not the campaign's bill alone — but it is the first time the strikes have been priced into the world's reference oil balance. By end-July more than 30 percent of Russia's actual refining capacity was out of commission (45 percent of nominal, a different measure), and on 14 August the government conceded fuel supply 'remains difficult' in eleven named regions.

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Institute for the Study of WarInternational Energy AgencyOilprice.comCharter97

Aug 13, 2026

Russia's Fuel Exports Hit a Record Low, and the Export Ban Runs Into 2027

The cumulative bill on Russian refining, measured from outside and conceded from inside, deepened across the week. The Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air reported that Russian oil-product export loadings fell 23 percent in July to 4.7 million tonnes — the lowest on record and less than half the 9.6 million tonnes loaded a year earlier — as fossil-fuel export revenue slid 12 percent month on month to 683 million euros a day, with seaborne oil-product revenue down 45 percent. Moscow's own answer confirms the strain: the government renewed its ban on gasoline and diesel exports to run from August 1 to January 31, 2027, longer and broader than the end-of-2026 gasoline extension its deputy prime minister had signalled, and the average petrol price has climbed 19 percent since the start of the year. The refineries kept falling. The Orsk plant near the Kazakh border suspended operations after a strike, with the Orenburg governor estimating repairs could take six months, and overnight into August 13 drones hit the Gazprom Neftekhim Salavat complex in Bashkortostan, which processes up to 74 million barrels of crude a year — the fourth refinery struck in three days. These are the effect the campaign's planners said they were after: not a burning tank but a national fuel market that can no longer export what it makes.

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Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA)PBS NewsHourThe Moscow TimesInstitute for the Study of War

Aug 12, 2026

Russia's Budget Swings Back to Deficit in July as the Oil Windfall Vanishes and the State Reaches for Households

Russia's federal budget swung back into deficit in July 2026 after a rare June surplus — an $8.8 billion monthly shortfall despite the spring's Iran-war oil-price windfall — so that the seven-month deficit already exceeds the whole of 2025's with five months of the year still to run. Finance Ministry figures for January-July put oil-and-gas revenue down about a sixth year-on-year to 4.6 trillion roubles (about $56 billion), with spending outpacing revenue; the hole was plugged largely by value-added tax, whose receipts jumped by a quarter after Moscow raised the rate to 22% at the start of the year — a levy on ordinary Russians' spending rather than on oil prices. Much of the windfall never reached the budget because it went to subsidising the refiners whose plants Ukrainian drones keep hitting. Borrowing, the other fallback, has jammed: Russia suspended government bond auctions in July after investors balked. So the burden is shifting onto households: a draft law would let the state move about $40 billion from private pension accounts, the Communist leader has urged Putin to tap Russians' bank savings, and through the first half of 2026 Russians withdrew cash from the banking system at the fastest pace since the pandemic. Analysts quoted expect the full-year deficit to approach double last year's. This is the same fiscal squeeze the August 4 mid-year assessments described, now carried past the half-year mark by the July execution data — recorded here as the whole-system take-away, distinct from the strike-by-strike refinery damage tracked on the strike-campaign page.

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Euromaidan PressRussian Ministry of Finance (Minfin)

Aug 5, 2026

Russia Brings Back Petrol It Banned in 2013 to Head Off a Fuel Crisis

The domestic cost of the refinery campaign surfaced in a government decree. Russia authorised the production, import and sale of Euro-2, -3 and -4 (K2–K4) motor gasoline — grades banned in the country since 2013 — until July 1, 2027, to stave off a fuel shortage; Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak tied the step to drone strikes on refineries. The Moscow Times reported that gasoline output had fallen to about 65 percent of average domestic consumption by early July and that diesel output barely matched demand. Gasoline imports from Belarus surged roughly 25-fold year on year, to about 665,000 tonnes over January–July, with further imports from India, Kazakhstan and Morocco. A government relaxing its own fuel-quality law is a clean, dated effect stated by the side being hurt — the domestic-supply counterpart to the export bans already on the record, which addressed the other end of the same shortage.

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United24 MediaThe Moscow Times

Aug 4, 2026

Russia's War Economy Books a Record Half-Year Deficit as the Windfall Fails to Reach the Budget

Two mid-year assessments published within a day of each other put hard figures on the strain inside Russia's war economy — a picture distinct from the strike-by-strike damage: this is the fiscal and structural state of the whole system. The KSE Institute's biannual review (August 4) records a federal budget deficit of 5.7 trillion roubles, or 2.7% of GDP, for the first half of 2026 — larger than the deficit for all of 2025, 51% above the initial budget plan and 19% above the revised target — against an economy in stagnation, contracting 0.6% quarter-on-quarter and 0.2% year-on-year in the first quarter. The Strait-of-Hormuz price spike delivered a windfall (oil-export earnings rose from about $10.4 billion a month in January-February to roughly $20 billion in the spring), but far less of it reached the treasury than headline earnings imply: Russia spent around 620 billion roubles in April-June holding down domestic fuel prices, so a 1.6-trillion-rouble rise in base oil-and-gas revenue added only about 0.8 trillion to the budget. The Atlantic Council (August 5) frames the same squeeze from the revenue side — oil and gas earnings from January to June fell to 64% of their level two years earlier — and from the financing side: the liquid portion of the National Wealth Fund is largely depleted, VAT was raised from 20% to 22% in January, and late in the half rising borrowing costs and weak demand from domestic banks produced failed or cancelled government bond auctions. A European intelligence estimate puts problem loans at around 10%, which both institutions read as a banking-crisis warning, while the central bank keeps cutting its key rate (to 14%, a tenth straight cut) even as household inflation expectations hold at 13% against official inflation of 6%. KSE's own conclusion is that the windfall bought time without removing Russia's fundamental fiscal and structural vulnerabilities.

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Kyiv School of Economics (KSE Institute)Atlantic Council

Aug 4, 2026

Russian Refining Falls to a 24-Year Low, and This Time the Number Is Not Ukraine's

For the first time the strike campaign's cumulative effect on Russian refining is quantified by a party with no stake in the claim. Bloomberg reported on August 3, citing the consultancy EA Analytics, that Russian refineries processed an estimated 3.6 million barrels of crude a day in July 2026 — roughly a third below the 5.3–5.6 million barrels seen across the same months in 2020–2025, and the lowest refining rate since May 2002 — forcing Russia to export near-record volumes of unrefined crude. Bloomberg counted 30 attacks on oil infrastructure in July (18 of them refineries, including the Omsk plant more than 2,500 kilometres from the border, plus five tankers, five port sites and two pipelines), the second-highest monthly total after May's 32. The Institute for the Study of War, relaying Meduza, RBK and Deutsche Welle, separately put the degradation of Russia's refining capacity at "at least one third." These are outside estimates of outcome rather than the striking forces' counts of activity — the measurable effect the campaign's Ukrainian planners have said they are pursuing, now visible from the Russian-refining side. Bloomberg's own report is paywalled and reached here through The Moscow Times and ISW, and is attributed as relayed.

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The Moscow TimesInstitute for the Study of War

Jul 28, 2026

The Senate Passes the Graham Sanctions Bill, 86-11, and the House Takes It Up

The Senate passed the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act on August 7 by 86-11, ten days after voting 86-12 to take it up and weeks after Graham's death; Zelenskyy lobbied senators in person before the first vote. The operative text carries two tariff powers, not one. Section 112 directs duties of up to 500 percent on Russian goods within thirty days of enactment; Section 113 directs duties of up to 100 percent on countries that buy Russian crude or gas or help evade sanctions; Section 115 lets the President waive any of it on certifying a national interest. That authority, not the sanctions, is the fight. Its principal Democratic author Richard Blumenthal says it “authorizes — but does not require” the third-country tariffs; Gregory Meeks, ranking Democrat on House Foreign Affairs, calls it “a massive backdoor authority for President Trump to impose more tariffs.” A bipartisan House companion was introduced on August 10, but leaders left the bill off the September floor schedule, and on September 3 Speaker Mike Johnson said he doubted it could reach a vote before the November 3 midterms, citing the few working days scheduled, opposition from senior Democrats on the Foreign Affairs and Ways and Means committees, and pockets of Republican concern; Foreign Affairs chair Brian Mast said the bill's effect on petrol prices was being weighed. Most major Russian financial and energy entities are already designated, so the bill's material effect would be to write them into statute beyond a future administration's unilateral reach. The doubt was overtaken: the House passed the bill 262–159 on September 16 and it was signed into law on September 18.

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Politico EuropeRadio Free Europe/Radio LibertyOffice of Rep. Michael McCaul (U.S. House)NPRAxiosAtlantic CouncilThe Kyiv IndependentRadio Free Europe/Radio LibertyTIMEUnited States SenateUnited States SenateHouse Foreign Affairs Committee DemocratsNPRUkrainska PravdaNPRThe White House

Jul 23, 2026

EU Adopts Its Largest Sanctions Package in Four Years

The Council of the European Union adopted its 21st package of restrictive measures against Russia on July 23, carrying 218 individual listings — 48 people and 170 entities — which the Council describes as the largest batch of listings in four years. The financial measures freeze the assets of 94 banks and major financial institutions and extend the EU's transaction ban to 33 further Russian credit and financial institutions, to 14 crypto-service platforms based in Georgia, Panama, the UAE, the Marshall Islands, Kyrgyzstan and Belarus, and — for the first time — create the possibility of a blanket third-country ban on crypto services used by Russia. On energy, 41 more shadow-fleet tankers were listed on top of the 632 already sanctioned, bringing the total to 673, alongside three Russian refineries, a major Belarusian refinery, and a transaction ban on a Georgian refinery at Kulevi that takes effect in six months. Fifty-six listings target the military-industrial complex, 37 of them tied directly to long-range drone production, and 51 entities were added to tighter dual-use export controls — including firms in China and Hong Kong, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Türkiye and the UAE — over circumvention in microelectronics, CNC machine tools and semiconductor-processing equipment. The package also pauses the automatic adjustment of the Russian oil price cap until July 15, 2027, citing the market shock from the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, and lays the legal basis for a visa ban on Russian combatants that the Council has not yet brought into force. DW reported, citing two unnamed EU diplomats, that weeks of deadlock broke after Greece secured an exemption allowing one of its shipping firms to keep carrying Russian LNG from the Arctic; the Council's own release mentions no such exemption.

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European Council / Council of the EUDeutsche Welle (DW)

Jul 22, 2026

Let me note at the outset of our meeting that the state of the Russian economy, and of its key sectors, remains stable despite external attempts to destabilise the fuel and energy sector and certain other industries.

— Vladimir Putin Mixed

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Institute for the Study of WarKyiv School of Economics (KSE Institute)Atlantic Council

Covered since Jul 2026Read it from the start →