https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/russia-using-spare-oil-refining-capacity-offset-ukrainian-drone-damage-sources-2025-11-13/
Answering my own question, partly, this article suggest that it’s still not as bad as we had hoped it would be because apparently Russia has other refining capacity that was not being used, and which went online to mitigate the production losses from the September-October attacks.
I have to note that saying “industry sources” is not the depth of information that we should rely on if those industry sources are the Russians. But Reuters…
If true, this does show Russian resilience - for a timeframe anyway. Albert Spear was a genius and kept Nazi war production going despite night and day bombing at a rate that was truly impressive. But that was a matter of when, and not if, the war economy would collapse.
But it also occurs to me if they have to start up previously non-producing smaller refineries, they can’t set up decent air defenses everywhere for them. If they can’t stop their largest refineries from getting hit multiple times, the smaller ones in Dogpatch Russia are going to be easy targets over time because they are running out of Pantsirs and S-400s. And I would bet they are not moving any out of Moscow or St. Petersburg in any event.
Political priorities versus strategic priorities.