Russian authorities left residents in and around Moscow without air raid sirens or phone alerts during Ukraine's largest combined strike on Moscow Oblast, apparently to guard turnout at Russia's parliamentary elections, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said. The silence angered residents and even pro-war commentators as a major oil refinery burned.

For most of this war, Russia has handled strikes on its cities as a routine to be announced, warned about, and waited out. Withholding warnings during the heaviest raid yet, in the middle of a national vote, suggests authorities will trade residents' safety for the look of a calm election when a political milestone is on the line.

Sirens stayed off during the biggest raid

Ukraine hit strategic sites across the Moscow area overnight on 19-20 September, the last day of Russia's State Duma vote. Moscow Oblast officials did not switch on air alert sirens or send the SMS warnings they had used during far smaller attacks. They quietly restricted mobile service without major public notice. Ukraine struck oil and logistics targets, not polling stations, according to the experts, and authorities appeared to place high turnout above protecting civilians.

Moscow Oblast residents complained that no alert reached them, some posting on the Telegram channel of regional Governor Andrei Vorobyov before it closed comments. A prominent Kremlin-linked military blogger attacked the official response, saying it erodes public trust and that cutting mobile service does "not really help."

What the drones hit

Ukraine's General Staff reported striking the Gazpromneft-Moscow Oil Refinery in the city's Kapotnya district, one of Russia's largest plants, causing a large fire. Ukrainian manufacturer Fire Point said its FP-1 drones completely shut down the refinery, with all primary processing units damaged.

Governor Andrei Vorobyov claimed air defenses countered 249 drones across 17 municipal districts. The strike was part of Ukraine's widening campaign against the fuel sector funding Russia's war, with about a fifth of Russian refining capacity offline.

Russian oil refineries earned more in the first half of this year than in the same period a year earlier, even as Ukrainian drone strikes kept a fifth of the country's refining capacity out of action, The Moscow Times reported. Record wholesale prices and fast-growing payments from the federal budget have more than covered what the attacks and the repairs cost. Russian consumers are covering the rest at the pump.

Where the profits come from

Russian refineries earned 938 billion rubles ($11.1 billion) in the first half of 2026, 16.2% more than a year earlier, according to the state statistics service Rosstat. Ukrainian drone strikes have put a fifth of the country's refining capacity out of action.

Two things produced that result, according to Promsvyazbank analyst Yekaterina Krylova: high wholesale prices on the SPIMEX commodity exchange, and a sharp increase in state fuel subsidies.

Wholesale prices took off in March, after the war in the Middle East began: light petroleum products have risen 37% since late February and diesel by a third, with July bringing record exchange prices of 82,600 rubles ($982) per tonne of AI-95 gasoline. Crude got cheaper for the refiners over the same stretch, as the ruble price of Urals oil peaked in spring and fell through the summer while the products made from it kept getting dearer.

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The budget pays the difference, the country pays the bill

Russia's damper mechanism compensates oil companies for selling fuel cheaply at home rather than exporting it, and the payments grow as the gap between domestic and world prices widens.

The Finance Ministry paid out close to 350 billion rubles ($4.2 billion) a month in the second quarter, and 500 billion rubles ($5.9 billion) for July and August together. Krylova expects the subsidies and the prices together to widen net margins by 45% in the third quarter, to 35,000 rubles ($416) per tonne of gasoline.

Russia's retail prices tell the other half of the story. Gasoline has risen 21.2% since January and diesel 18.4%, well above Russian inflation. Budget money lets the majors, which own both the refineries and the filling-station chains, hold their own forecourt prices near inflation. Independent chains have no such cushion: they buy at the higher wholesale prices and sell dearer, which is how Russia has been squeezing them out of the market. For drivers, the crisis has been physical as well as financial, with rationing and dry pumps spreading across dozens of regions.

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What the strikes have cost

Ukrainian drones have been hitting Russian refineries since 2024, and the campaign escalated sharply from August 2025, when strikes deep inside Russia became systematic. Russian refineries disclose none of their losses from it.

Ukraine's General Staff estimated the total damage to the Russian oil industry since August 2025 at $13.5 billion, in a count published in early July. The insurance broker Mains put direct losses to the oil and gas sector from drone strikes last year at more than 100 billion rubles ($1.2 billion), and above a trillion rubles once lost profit and indirect damage are counted.