0755GMT//Russian refinery capacity falls further; Kremlin seizes snack food producer; opposition leader arrested
FUEL SHORTAGES WORSEN: Russia's oil refining capacity has fallen 38% this year, rather than 20%, because of Ukrainian drone strikes, new estimates said. Reuters reported that Russia lost 17% of its oil refining capacity just in August. (COMMENT: Ukrainian drone strikes against Russian refineries have been one of the most successful Ukrainian tactics of the war. The Kremlin has, broadly, been unable to stop the strikes and is now importing fuel from China and other friendly countries. It has also forced the Eurasian Economic Union to drop a fuel import ban so that it can leverage imports through Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.)
QUEUES AND REFILL LIMITS: Russia's fuel shortages are worsening. Having promised that a refill limit of 30 litres of petrol would be lifted in "days", the authorities in occupied Crimea have instead tightened restrictions to 20 litres per car. A video uploaded onto the Telegram social media channel from the Moscow-Kazan motorway showed queues of cars for over 1 mile waiting to fill up at petrol stations. (COMMENT: The fuel shortages are worse in regions with inherent fuel supply problems – in the Far East and Crimea. Data showed that 360 petrol stations closed across Russia in July - Sept. This is around 2.6% of the total petrol stations. In Crimea, though, roughly half of all petrol stations have closed.)
SPEEDING UP THE SALE OF STATE ASSETS: Vladimir Putin signed into law changes to speed up the sale of state assets. He also ordered all state assets to be sold through PSB, a bank that is closely linked to his associates. (COMMENT: There are two important issues to consider here. The first is PSB, a bank under Western sanctions that is closely linked to Russia's military industrial complex. The second is the streamlined sales process itself. This implies that the Kremlin may be eyeing up more asset sales to boost its coffers. Many of the assets due to be sold were seized from Western companies when they quit Russia after the Kremlin's invasion of Ukraine.)
FOOD PRODUCER SEIZED: A court in Moscow ordered the state to confiscate KDV Group, one of Russia's largest food snack producers. It said that KDV's owners, Denis Shtengelov and his father Nikolai, have been supporting Ukraine's armed forces. They reportedly left Russia 10 years ago. Denis Shtengelov now has Australian citizenship and Nikolai Shtengelov has Ukrainian citizenship. (COMMENT: The Kremlin has been confiscating companies belonging to businessmen it accuses of supporting Ukraine since its invasion in Feb. 2022. Most of these companies end up being sold on cheaply to associates of Putin.)
OPPOSITION LEADER ARRESTED: Police in Moscow arrested Maxim Kruglov, the deputy head of the soft opposition Yabloko party, for spreading "fake news" about the Russian army. Kruglov was a Moscow city deputy from 2019 - 2024. Media reported that his arrest was linked to comments he made in April 2022 about the rape and murder of Ukrainians in Bucha, near Kyiv, by Russian soldiers. (COMMENT: Yabloko was once a genuine opposition party but has had to transform itself over the past few years into a soft pro-peace party. Even so, it was remarkable that it was allowed to exist. Although its support base has dwindled to just a few thousand people, it had been assumed that the Kremlin considered it a useful vent for public frustration. The arrest of Kruglov suggests that the Kremlin now wants to close Yabloko down. Lev Shlosberg, another senior Yabloko activist, was arrested in June for "discrediting" the Russian army.)