Russia’s war on Ukraine is still very much alive. Frontlines are moving, if slowly; Russian factories keep turning out shells and tanks; Ukraine still absorbs drone and missile salvos that black out cities for hours or days. But if you zoom out from this month’s battles and follow the money, fuel and manpower, the picture that emerges between 9 October and 14 November is not of a rejuvenated war machine. It is of a Russia that can still hit hard, but only by paying a steeper price for each unit of damage it inflicts.
This period is defined by three trends:
This note continues the experiment I started in June and formalised in September: track the sustainment question with transparent, receipts‑first data. The core hypothesis remains the same: Russia’s war effort will fail where empires usually fail—on logistics, finance, energy and manpower. October’s update argued that the system was still functioning but increasingly “over redline”: each month of war required more distortion, more borrowing, more cannibalisation of the civilian economy. The November evidence pushes us further down that curve, even as we see highly plausible warnings that, if Russia survives this phase, it might try to re‑arm for a broader European confrontation by 2030.
On a personal note, I’d love to believe that the unsustainability trajectory is becoming more pronounced, but this month was the first time I’ve ever seen a single daily sustainability analysis shift prognosis categorically from 2025Q4 to 2026H1. That was one single blip among the 100+ daily analyses I’ve done so far, but I’ve never seen the opposite – there was never any daily report predicting 2025Q4 categorically as the end of Russian sustainment.
I’m still watching the same four signal families:
As before, fog‑of‑war is real; numbers move; single‑source claims get treated with salt. What matters is the direction of travel and the cost of maintaining it.
Even before the mid‑October baseline, Ukraine had already shown it could reach deep into Russia’s fuel system—hitting Ufa’s Bashneft/UNPZ refinery about 1,400 km from the front and forcing the largest unit at the Kirishi refinery (about 6.6% of national capacity) offline earlier in the month (Arab News; Guardian; Reuters). Between 14 October and 14 November, that campaign scaled further and widened.
On 2–3 November, Ukrainian intelligence and AP report strikes on the Koltsevoy fuel pipeline near Moscow, damaging three lines feeding from Ryazan, Nizhny Novgorod and Moscow refineries into a key distribution ring around the capital (AP; GUR). Ukrainian drones also hit the Tuapse oil terminal on the Black Sea, igniting a tanker and damaging port infrastructure; Russian officials acknowledged a fire and the port later halted fuel exports for a time (Reuters; Moscow Times).
Refinery and petrochemical targets were hit again. Kyiv Independent and Reuters document repeat strikes on the Saratov refinery, damage to Russia’s fourth‑largest refinery in Ryazan, and a drone attack on the Sterlitamak petrochemical plant in Bashkortostan that destroyed part of its infrastructure (Kyiv Independent; Reuters – gas plant and Ryazan; Reuters – Sterlitamak). Ukraine also claims a successful strike on a refinery in Nizhny Novgorod (Kstovo); Russian reporting acknowledges at least some damage (Reuters).
Closer to the front, Ukrainian drones and missiles hit ammunition and fuel depots in occupied Luhansk, Belgorod and Kursk, causing large fires visible on satellite imagery and acknowledged by regional authorities (United24; Reuters). Kyiv now claims roughly 160 oil and energy facilities hit in 2025 and about 20% of Russia’s refining capacity degraded at some point this year; independent tallies by Reuters and Russia Matters confirm that 13–17% of national refining throughput has been knocked offline at peaks (Reuters; AP; Russia Matters).
Sustainment effect: the strikes don’t cripple Russia’s fuel system overnight, but they raise the repair burden, force dispersal and hardening of depots, and reduce flexibility in how fuel can be moved and allocated. Rear‑area air defense and security forces that might otherwise support the front are now tied down guarding fixed infrastructure, and each new hit increases the risk that a local fuel shortage collides with an offensive surge.
Energy remains Russia’s financial backbone, but November’s data show that backbone bending. IEA and Reuters estimate that September oil and fuel export revenues fell to about $13.35 billion, with crude exports around 5.1 million barrels per day and product exports near 2.4 million barrels per day (Reuters). By early November, Bloomberg and Reuters report seaborne crude flows down to roughly 3.45 million barrels per day on a four‑week average and weekly exports of about 23.4 million barrels, while seaborne fuel exports slid to around 2.0 million barrels per day, roughly 500,000 barrels per day below peak (Bloomberg; Reuters).
On the tax side, Business Insider and the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air estimate that October oil‑and‑gas tax revenues were down about 27% year‑on‑year, with a ten‑month shortfall above 2 trillion roubles (around 21%) versus previous baselines (Business Insider; Energy & Clean Air). Kyiv Independent and BOFIT had already flagged that September oil‑and‑gas revenues were roughly 25% lower than a year earlier and that the official 2025 deficit plan was quietly revised up to about ₽6.9 trillion, or ~3.2% of GDP, before this latest leg down in revenue (Kyiv Independent; BOFIT).
Combine weaker prices, lower volumes and stricter sanctions enforcement—especially on Rosneft, Lukoil and the “shadow fleet” that moves capped barrels—and Russia’s fossil‑fuel exports look less like an inexhaustible cash engine and more like a mediocre business with rising compliance and logistics costs (Reuters; EU rules; MarineLink; Hellenic Shipping News). October fossil‑fuel export revenue is estimated at about €524 million per day, among the lowest levels since the invasion (Energy & Clean Air).
Macro‑fiscal indicators in this window show a war economy still functioning but with shrinking cushions. TradingEconomics and Interfax put the Jan–Sep federal deficit around ₽3.8 trillion (roughly 1.7% of GDP), and by August the cumulative deficit was already in the ₽4.2–4.9 trillion range (~1.9–2.2% of GDP), above the 1.7% target for the entire year (TradingEconomics; Interfax). BOFIT notes that the official 2025 deficit plan was revised up to roughly ₽6.9 trillion (~3.2% of GDP)—a tacit admission that earlier budget arithmetic no longer holds (BOFIT).
On the financing side, the Central Bank has kept the key rate near 16.5% to contain inflation running around 8% year‑on‑year, while 10‑year OFZ bond yields hover around 14.8–15% (Reuters; CBR). Reuters estimates that debt‑servicing costs are set to rise about 23% in 2026, reaching roughly 8.8% of federal spending, meaning that an increasing share of each rouble the state raises goes to paying interest on past wars rather than future growth (Reuters).
Meanwhile, liquid assets in the National Wealth Fund sit at about $50.3 billion (~1.9% of GDP), with total NWF around ₽13.2 trillion (~5.9% of GDP) as of 1 October (TradingEconomics; MarketScreener). That is still a cushion, but a thin and declining one in the context of sustained war‑time deficits.
Taken together, Russia is financing today’s war not from surplus energy income, but from expensive domestic borrowing and finite reserve drawdowns. You can run a system like that for some years; you cannot run it indefinitely without either higher prices, a bigger external sponsor, or large cuts to civilian spending.
On the manpower side, the Duma’s shift to year‑round conscription processing formalizes Russia’s move from episodic drafts to a permanent mobilisation footing, while regional labour‑mobilisation decrees let authorities reassign skilled workers into defence‑linked roles (AP; Reuters). These measures build on earlier mobilisations and enlistment campaigns, and they are happening against a backdrop of already severe labour shortages in both war‑industry and civilian sectors (Moscow Times).
Reuters reporting in October described furloughs and shorter workweeks at large non‑war firms, as state‑linked defence enterprises poach staff and the government steers workforce into priority sectors (Reuters). In the short run, that helps keep shell, missile and vehicle production up; in the medium run, it hollows out the broader economy and erodes the human capital Russia will need for whatever comes after this war.
Sanctions in this period didn’t disappear into background noise; they tightened and shifted toward enforcement. The US, EU and UK added Rosneft, Lukoil and dozens of shadow‑fleet vessels to sanctions lists and moved toward banning maritime services for Russian LNG exports, while the EU adopted “origin” rules to close back‑door routes for Russian oil products (US Treasury; Reuters; EU rules; MarineLink; Reuters – UK LNG). In parallel, the EU agreed to phase out Russian gas imports by 1 January 2028, signalling that Europe’s decoupling from Russian energy is becoming a structural policy, not a wartime improvisation (Reuters).
Enforcement is increasingly visible: sanctioned tankers sit at anchor for weeks; insurers decline coverage; port‑state inspections delay cargoes (Reuters; Hellenic Shipping News). The net effect is not an immediate collapse in flows, but higher friction and lower effective revenue per barrel.
Russia’s foreign lifelines remained real but bounded. North Korea continues to supply artillery shells and, according to Ukrainian claims, even operates reconnaissance drones from Russian territory; Iran remains central to Russia’s drone ecosystem; China is still Russia’s main economic partner and buyer of discounted oil (Reuters – DPRK ISR; Reuters – Putin/Kim; Reuters – trade). But none of these partners is providing the kind of industrial‑scale, cutting‑edge assistance that would fundamentally reverse Russia’s war‑economy trajectory.
On the other side of the ledger, Ukraine’s support picture improved modestly. Germany delivered additional Patriot air‑defence systems; Ukraine is ramping interceptor‑drone production toward 600–800 units per day; the EU’s gas phase‑out and fossil‑fuel sanctions reduce Russia’s long‑run leverage; and US intelligence support for Ukraine’s deep‑strike targeting was reaffirmed (Kyiv Independent; AP; Business Insider; Reuters – intel).
On the ground, Russia concentrated offensive effort around Pokrovsk in Donetsk Oblast and pressed in southern Zaporizhzhia. ISW and Reuters describe incremental Russian gains on the northern and eastern outskirts of Pokrovsk, heavy urban combat, and extensive use of glide bombs and drones—but no encirclement or operational breakthrough; Ukraine reinforced the sector, including inserting special forces by helicopter, and maintained key supply lines (ISW; Reuters; Al Jazeera).
In southern Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine conducted a tactical withdrawal from Rivnopillia around 11–12 November to more defensible positions, explicitly framed as preserving manpower; Kyiv says this helped halt further Russian advances in that sector (Reuters). Elsewhere, Russia claimed village‑level gains in Kharkiv and Dnipropetrovsk, but these do not materially change the strategic picture (Reuters).
Sustainment implication: Russia is still capable of high‑intensity local offensives, but each kilometre gained in or around Pokrovsk consumes large volumes of shells, missiles, glide bombs and bodies. The offensive is not evidence that Russia has solved its sustainment problem; it is evidence that Moscow is still willing to spend down what it has to create facts on the map.
Some of the clearest receipts from this window:
“If Russia is supposedly nearing sustainment limits, why are Ukrainian and Western leaders warning that Putin is preparing for a much bigger war by 2029–2030? Doesn’t that mean Russia is stronger—and more durable—than you claim?”
The alarm is real. In recent months, President Volodymyr Zelensky has warned that Russia is “preparing to be able to start such a big war in 2029 or 2030… on the European continent,” arguing that if Ukraine does not stop Moscow now, it will regroup and come back larger later (The Independent). Senior Western commanders have echoed that concern: France’s Chief of Defence Staff, General Fabien Mandon, has told his forces to be ready for a conflict with Russia within three to four years, and Germany’s Lt. General Alexander Sollfrank has warned that a large‑scale assault on NATO could be conceivable by 2029 if Russia’s rearmament continues, noting that limited attacks are already “in the realm of the possible” even while Russia is tied down in Ukraine (Pravda, citing Mandon; Reuters). Analysts point to record defence spending (on the order of €120 billion in 2025, more than 6% of GDP and nearly four times the 2021 budget) and production lines turning out millions of shells and hundreds of tanks per year as evidence that Moscow is trying to rebuild capacity, not merely survive (The Week; RFE/RL).
Taken at face value, that sounds like a direct refutation of any “Russia is running out of steam” thesis. It isn’t. It’s a warning about what happens if Russia is allowed to step off the treadmill it is currently on, catch its breath, and then come back for another round. Two points matter here.
First, capacity is not the same thing as sustainability; and sustainability today is not the same as sustainability after a pause. The November data show a war economy that can still field big offensives and mass‑produce “good enough” hardware—but only by running hotter and more distorted each month. Russia is financing war through high‑yield domestic debt and reserve drawdowns, squeezing labour out of the civilian economy, and relying on sanctions‑busting networks for critical inputs. Chatham House describes the military‑industrial complex as being in a state of “regression”, forced back onto simpler Soviet‑era designs and struggling to produce advanced systems at scale under sanctions (Chatham House). RUSI’s David Roche argues that Russia can probably maintain a war‑heavy budget for several more years, but only by “cannibalising everything else” and driving its deficit and debt burden toward unsustainable levels—an ability to stagger on, not a sign of healthy strength (RUSI; RUSI).
Second, the 2030 scenarios explicitly assume a change of state. When Western officers and analysts talk about a larger war by the end of the decade, they usually add a conditional clause: if Russia’s armament efforts persist; if it can pause, regroup and rebuild; if sanctions enforcement is leaky enough to let its defence industry retool (Reuters; Oxford Analytica). Our sustainment assessment says something slightly different but complementary: on its current trajectory, without a major pause or lifeline, Russia’s ability to sustain high‑intensity war in Ukraine will become critically constrained somewhere between late‑2025 and mid‑2026, with risk drifting toward the early part of that range. There is no contradiction between “Russia is running out of room to keep fighting like this” and “Russia might still be dangerous in 2030” if you assume Moscow is able to step off the treadmill before it flies off.
So the counter‑argument fails on its own terms. The fact that (1) Putin is pouring money into rearmament and (2) Western planners are treating a 2030 war as plausible is not evidence that the current war is sustainable. It is evidence that everyone involved understands this war is burning through Russia’s stocks, men and money at a pace it cannot keep up indefinitely—and that if Russia gets a ceasefire or a frozen conflict on tolerable terms, it might use that pause to reconstitute. The practical implication for policy is the same as Zelensky’s: push now, while the costs of each month of war continue to rise for Moscow, and make any future rearmament as hard and as expensive as possible (The Independent; Foreign Affairs).
A few concrete tripwires for the next 4–8 weeks:
Between mid‑October and mid‑November, Russia still advances, slowly and expensively, around Pokrovsk; it still fires massive volleys of drones and missiles at Ukrainian cities; its factories still turn out shells, refurbished tanks and “good enough” drones at a pace that outstrips today’s Western output in some categories. But sustaining that capacity is becoming more expensive, more distortionary, and more dependent on burning future wealth for present warfighting. Deep‑rear strikes are forcing costly adaptations in Russia’s fuel and logistics systems; energy revenue and export trends are worsening; the budget is under mounting stress with high‑rate domestic borrowing and rising debt‑service costs; labour and mobilisation measures are hollowing out the civilian economy; and sanctions are tightening around the shadow fleet and hydrocarbons, not fading.
The unsustainability window I flagged in the October update—late‑2025 to mid‑2026 as the period where Russia’s ability to sustain the current war tempo becomes critically constrained, absent a major lifeline—still holds and is, if anything, drifting toward its earlier edge (Energy & Clean Air; IMF/Reuters; Foreign Affairs). The 2030 war warnings from Kyiv and Western commanders do not disprove that thesis; they underline the stakes. They describe a world where Russia is allowed to step away from the current grind, regroup, and turn its degraded but battle‑hardened system toward a bigger confrontation later. The job over the coming months is to make that path as hard as possible: keep increasing the marginal cost of every Russian strike and every kilometre gained, tighten the screws on the war economy’s fuel, finance and inputs, and ensure that Ukraine and its partners have the industrial and political stamina to outlast a Kremlin that is spending down its future to keep fighting today.