As Russia's refineries burn, petrol queues reach Volgograd

Today I chose the burning of the Lukoil refinery in Volgograd, because the loss of a third of Russia's fuel output within two weeks explains where this war has arrived better than any single image of fire. The news is plain: on the night of 13 November, Ukrainian drones struck the Lukoil-Volgogradneftepererabotka facility; four workers were killed and two people were injured. Volgograd Governor Andrey Bocharov confirmed it. Videos shared by the independent Russian outlet Astra show queues forming in front of petrol stations in the city in the early hours of Friday morning.

The facility is not small: it is one of Russia's ten largest refineries, processing around 14 million tonnes of crude a year, roughly five percent of the country's total refining capacity. It is a place that supplies petrol, diesel and aviation fuel to the southern regions and to the Black Sea Fleet. In full scale, it is being struck for at least the ninth time since the start of the war; in the 2 October attack it had been forced to halt crude processing entirely, and on 29 May four primary distillation units — AVT-1, AVT-3, AVT-5, AVT-6 — were damaged. So Volgograd is not a target in this campaign; it is a target that is returned to.

The full picture is bigger. According to industrial sources cited by Reuters, Russia's daily refining volume has fallen from around 700 thousand tonnes to 500 thousand tonnes since the end of October; roughly thirty percent. The Ukrainian defence manufacturer Fire Point gives a more assertive figure: the combined annual processing capacity of at least nine large refineries struck between 30 October and 11 November exceeds 120 million tonnes, which corresponds to 36 percent of Russia's entire domestic refining capacity. Novokuybyshevsk, Ryazan, Afipsky, Saratov, Yaroslavl, Omsk, Nizhny Novgorod, Ufa and Kirishi; half of the map. Fuel sales restrictions are in force in the Leningrad, Nizhny Novgorod, Arkhangelsk, Novosibirsk and Penza regions, in Karelia and in Buryatia. At Rosneft stations in Moscow there is a limit of 50 litres per vehicle and 20 litres per canister.

My reading is this. Ukraine's refinery campaign, running since 2024, has crossed two thresholds at once: geographic depth (the strike on the Ust-Luga export terminals in the Baltic on 11 November), and visible consequence (rationing of 20 litres per canister, a sentence that hits ordinary Russia). Energy is no longer a side effect of the war; it is the war itself. Seen from where Zelensky framed it on 6 November as "direct retaliation for Russian attacks on our power grid", the logic is symmetrical: you hit our transformer, we hit your distillation column. There is a place where I could be wrong here: Fire Point is a manufacturer, and the 36 percent figure it gives could also be a marketing line; Reuters's thirty percent is a safer floor. Also, "capacity that has been struck" and "capacity that has actually stopped" are not the same thing; Russian refineries have come back before with rapid repairs. I have not fully worked this out yet.

A second caveat: the Russian Ministry of Defence announced that it had shot down 1,198 drones overnight; according to TASS's calculation based on the data, one of the year's largest attacks. More than 467 toward Moscow, 133 over Kaluga, more than 120 on the Rostov region. The figures come from a Russian source and are hard to verify; but for the first time the two sides' accounts overlap on the scale of the attack. And this is not a separate story either, it is the other end of the same story: Ukraine can now produce both depth and intensity on the same night.

In 2019, when I was on the Beirut desk, we read the Saudi Abqaiq attack; five percent of global supply was cut in a single night, and it came back within a few weeks. What I learned from there was this: in refining infrastructure the real issue is not the first day, but the fourth week. Russia's fourth week is beginning now.

By the end of Sunday 15 November, at least one new region will be added to the list of fuel sales restrictions in Russia, or the 50-litre per vehicle limit in Moscow will be lowered; if none is added and the limit stays fixed, I read it as meaning that a significant part of the capacity Ukraine struck has gone into repair and that Fire Point's 36 percent figure is an upper bound.

Notes from the region

Middle East — Nasser Hospital in Gaza has been struck for the seventh time since 2023; in the latest attack six Palestinians were killed, including a doctor and a child, and close to thirty people were wounded. Health Ministry Director-General Munir al-Bursh said "the world cannot protect a single hospital bed". Since the ceasefire of 10 October 2025, violations have left 1,622 dead and 5,878 wounded. The ceasefire has a name, but no ground beneath it.

Eurasia — Outside Volgograd, the night's second scene was Rostov-on-Don: falling debris damaged five apartment buildings, and a 1,500 square metre warehouse burned in the Aksay district. Governor Yuri Slyusar evacuated residents in the morning and opened temporary shelters. The figures come from the Russian side and have no independent verification; but the expansion of the geography — seventeen regions from Astrakhan to Tver — is beyond dispute.

Europe — According to Axios, all drone missions linked to the Starshield satellite in Ukraine have failed; in Russian-occupied areas the 161 km/h speed limit has returned. SpaceX says "no change". Zelensky said at the Dublin summit "we cannot keep up", and instructed the foreign and defence ministries to intensify contacts with Washington and with the company. The same crisis of mid-October is repeating with the same lack of response.

The dollar/TL is at 50.34 today, two kuruş above yesterday's 50.32. The climb from 50.01 at the start of November to here is neither panic nor calm; it works like a metronome, and whoever wants to listen, listens.