According to Ukraine’s Foreign Intelligence Service, Russia is reducing the number of active oil wells, while oil refining in the Russian Federation has already decreased by 10% in 2026.
“Our Foreign Intelligence Service has obtained new Russian documents assessing the aggressor state’s wartime losses. What is important is that this is an internal Russian assessment that they are trying to hide both from the world and from the domestic Russian audience. The first significant indicator is the reduction in active oil wells. Just one Russian oil company — and not even the largest — has already been forced to shut down around 400 wells,” Volodymyr Zelensky stated.
He emphasized that, given the specifics of Russian oil extraction, these are substantial losses, since restarting wells in Russia is significantly more difficult than in other oil-producing countries.
According to Zelensky, the second indicator is a reduction in oil refining by at least 10% in just the first few months of this year.
“We see that our Ukrainian long-range sanctions are truly working, and we will continue to expand this area of active operations,” he stressed.
The president also said that data regarding Russia’s banking crisis looks convincing: 11 financial institutions are preparing for complete liquidation due to problems that cannot be resolved otherwise, while another eight banks face critical difficulties that cannot be covered without outside resources.
“Also encouraging for us are the figures for the federal budget deficit this year — already nearly $80 billion by the fifth month of the year — and this comes amid the bankruptcy of a significant portion of Russia’s regional budgets,” he noted.
Zelensky instructed the head of Ukraine’s Foreign Intelligence Service, Oleh Luhovskyi, to disseminate information — in a way that would not compromise Ukrainian intelligence sources — about Russia’s attempts to involve international companies in efforts to stabilize its financial situation and bypass sanctions.
“In particular, we have documented attempts, unfortunately, to organize grain exports from the temporarily occupied territory of Crimea, as well as other forms of economic exploitation of the peninsula involving entities from the United States. We will inform our partners. We are also recording attempts to attract investment and technology from democratic countries into Russian Arctic oil and gas projects. We know how to counter this,” Zelensky added.
