07/11/2026 

In early July, Professor Lipsitz was the first to speak about this. The second was Volodymyr Milov in a Sunday (July 5) stream with Michael Nucky. And on July 7, Mikhail Krutikhin complained about this in a Facebook post: he said that because of the Ukrainians, he would soon have nothing to comment on – the subject for comments would disappear. The author of these lines also thought about this and on July 7, he posted the following comment on Facebook to his post about the attack on the Omsk refinery – in response to the response of an optimist who believes that Russia has a margin of safety:

“You touched on a very important topic. Economists talked about it the other day: how long can refinery owners restore them after strikes? And they came to the conclusion that it won’t be long. If only because repairs are very expensive, and companies are already experiencing financial difficulties. The state won’t help, it doesn’t have the money itself. And it can’t protect against air raids either. Take Omsk itself – the air defense is worthless. So Putin doesn’t even understand that he has literally a couple of months left! Zelensky gave him 40 days for a reason.”

As you have already understood, we are talking about the future of Russian oil refining (the near future) – will this most important industry (including for the war) withstand Ukrainian attacks? I think it will not. The refineries are poorly protected and in the time left before their end, this problem cannot be solved.

The oil industry is doomed and is unlikely to revive. No, something will certainly be restored, but with difficulty, not soon – and this will barely be enough for self-sufficiency (not a fact). The ridiculous claims to the status of an “energy superpower” will have to be completely forgotten, and we can say that Ukraine has removed Russia from the oil needle and done it forever. Half a century of fattening on oil and gas is over!

AI forecast

Krutikhin recently created a Facebook group called “Russian Oil and Gas”, and on July 7, a post appeared there with an artificial intelligence forecast. It’s worth reading. I’m giving the oracle’s opinion, preserving the spelling as much as possible.

“If we imagine a scenario in which absolutely all primary oil refining facilities in Russia are hypothetically destroyed, then even after the signing of a peace treaty and the complete lifting of sanctions, it will take from 3 to 5 years to restore the industry to pre-war volumes. This process cannot be carried out in a few months due to severe technological, logistical and raw material restrictions. Restoration will take place in several key stages:

1. First stage: emergency resuscitation (3-6 months). Minimum launch: From surviving fragments, old Soviet reserves and mobile modules, manual assembly of the simplest low-power installations (mini-refineries) will begin. Goal: Provide the country with low-quality fuel (Euro-2 level) for basic survival (ambulance, firefighters, agriculture, freight transportation).
2. Second stage: Design and ordering of equipment (1–2 years). Design: Even with the availability of old drawings, linking new installations to the destroyed sites, taking into account modern automation systems, will require 6 to 12 months of work by design institutes. Long-cycle equipment (LCE): The main rectification column (up to 60–90 meters high and weighing hundreds of tons), as well as powerful compressors and furnaces, are not in warehouses. Their manufacture at heavy engineering plants (such as Izhorsk Plants or Volgogradneftemash) to order takes 12 to 18 months per unit. With the simultaneous destruction of all AVT in the country, the plants (refineries – Yu.K.) will be in a huge multi-year queue.
3. Third stage: Logistics and installation (1–1.5 years). Delivery: Transportation of super-heavy columns is the most complex logistical operation, requiring the construction of special berths, the use of river barges and the closure of federal highways. Construction and strapping: Installation of metal structures, laying tens of kilometers of pipelines, installation of hundreds of thousands of automation sensors and commissioning work take at least a year for each large complex.
4. Fourth stage: Resuscitation of oil production (individually up to 5 years). The most hidden and dangerous damage is the forced shutdown of wells due to overflow of reservoirs in the first weeks of the crisis. Loss of wells: In regions with viscous oil and water-logged formations (Volga region, old fields in Siberia), plugged wells undergo paraffinization and siltation. New drilling: A significant part of the well stock after downtime will not be able to be started by simply turning the valve – they will have to be drilled again, which will take years of work by drilling crews.

The terms can be reduced to 2-3 years only in one case: if friendly or former opposing countries (for example, China or consortia with the US/EU) send thousands of their engineers, EPC contractors and ready-made equipment sets to Russia as part of the agreements, providing a large-scale “Marshall Plan” for the energy sector. Without external technological assistance, the process will drag on for a full five-year period.

Excessive optimism

What can be said about this? The forecast is too optimistic. First, the sanctions against the oil industry will not be lifted instantly and completely – the inertia of the bureaucracy is great, and besides, the lifting will have many opponents. If only because it is difficult to imagine replacing Putin’s dictatorship with a government that is at least somewhat democratic – he has nowhere to go.

Secondly, the restoration will require a lot of money, and after the economic collapse (which will inevitably result from the destruction of oil refining), neither private companies nor the state will have it. It is also useless to wait for foreign investments – Russia has done everything for this. So the AI’s hopes for Izhorsk Plants or Volgogradneftemash betray its insufficient knowledge of Russian realities. For some reason, it assumes that there will be money. But there will be none.

And even if we assume that they will be found (they will sell, say, the treasures of the Hermitage and other museums), then another obstacle will arise: Russia can manufacture the columns and other mechanics and hydraulics of the ELOU-AVT installation:

– Atmospheric column (71 m, 8 m in diameter) – Volgogradnaftomash (Volgograd);

– Vacuum column (52 m, 10 m in diameter, 518 tons) – AEM-Technologies branch (Volgodonsk, part of Rosatom);

– Metal structures (over 7500 tons) – Omsk ZM-Metal

– Shut-off valves – PTPA, Termo-Nova, etc.

– Construction of overpasses – PROMFINBUD

But! Microchips and controllers for APCS. Russian control systems consist of 90% imported components (Xilinx, Intel, TI). There is no production of such chips in the Russian Federation. High-pressure pumps and compressors for secondary processes (hydrocracking, catalytic cracking). They are not produced in the Russian Federation in the required quantity and quality. Catalysts for deep processing are up to 80% imported (UOP, Axens, Albemarle). Their own are worse and more expensive. Software for design, modeling, control – Siemens, Honeywell, Emerson. After the withdrawal of software support – pirated copies and software “crutches”. The AI ​​forecast is disconnected from Russian realities.

And he is overly optimistic. Even if we give free rein to our imagination and assume that Russia will be forgiven for all its misdeeds, his hopes that the industry can be restored in 5 years are unfounded. The ELOU-AVT complex at the Omsk Refinery began construction in 2016, when there were no sanctions yet, and was put into operation in 2023 – that is, without sanctions and regular arrivals, it was put into operation for 7 years!

Will imports save Russia?

As for Milov, in the stream with Naki and later on his channel, he was outraged by the sluggish reaction of the Russian government, saying that the gasoline crisis could easily be solved by importing gasoline. Hmm, an extremely dubious assumption.

First, Russia’s normal consumption in the summer is 110 thousand tons per day, the deficit is now 20 thousand tons per day, and after the attack on Omsk it is more. There is no such surplus of fuel in the world – thanks to Trump. Yes, Belarus’ reserves have run out and it has sharply reduced the supply on the St. Petersburg Stock Exchange, Kazakhstan’s reserves are also limited. And it is clear that imported gasoline will be expensive.

1. There is no money in the budget, which Milov himself regularly reports.
2. Gasoline tankers can only arrive at Baltic ports – where they will be immediately burned by Ukrainian drones.
3. The entire oil infrastructure of the Russian Federation is geared towards export, and gasoline will have to be transported by rail, which is problematic.
4. Following Russia, Ukraine may start attacking gas stations, since the queues at them can be seen from space. By the way, this will greatly help the masses hear Putin’s rhetoric, saying that a real war is going on! But I think this will not be necessary.

There are other reasons why Milov’s accusations seem frivolous, but that’s enough.

Resume

We have witnessed a historic event – ​​the collapse of Russia! Because Ukrainian drones are cutting its lifeblood with strikes on the oil and gas infrastructure. Many wrote about 2026 as a turning point, but few expected that the collapse would be so obvious and rapid.

https://www.obozrevatel.com/ukr/novosti-rossii/pohoron-rosijskoi-naftivki.htm