Ukrainian attacks on Russian oil refineries since late October have reduced Russia’s oil processing capacity by about 30%, according to industry sources

Ukrainian attacks on Russian oil refineries since late October have reduced Russia’s oil processing capacity by about 30%, according to industry sources.

Sustained strike campaigns against refining capacity have a well-established pattern: the loss falls on processing rather than production, so crude that cannot be run domestically is pushed toward export while product output tightens. The transmission channel is therefore the products complex, diesel and naphtha cracks and export availability from the affected region, rather than crude flat price, and episodes of this kind have historically shown products leading crude in relative strength. The distinction worth drawing is between capacity damaged and capacity lost: refining units can be repaired and restarted, and source estimates in conflict conditions have tended to overstate durable loss relative to what throughput data later shows. Actors here have prior form: the attacking side has pursued this campaign methodically over an extended period, and the defending side has previously responded with product export restrictions to protect domestic supply, which would amplify the tightening beyond the physical damage. Worth watching next are refinery run data, product export loadings out of the affected ports, any official export ban, and whether strike tempo continues, since the effect compounds only if repairs are outpaced. Freight and insurance on regional product flows are the usual early marker that the disruption is binding rather than notional.