After the presidential decree No. 604 was signed 24 of August, Russian authorities now have grounds to hijack an owner’s property for “temporary management” for 3 primary reasons: 1) if an owner did not take, or took too late, measures to secure a critical infrastructure facility, 2) if an owner’s measures “were ineffective” against Ukrainian drone attacks; or 3) if an owner was not able (or fast enough) to repair or restore such damaged facility.
What is interesting: the decree is not about facility only, it is about any property of an owner and ANY assets inside Russia. Rosimushchestvo, the federal state property management agency, will be able to manage and execute every owner’s rights and power with only one exception: disposal, but without explicit end date. While it’s masqueraded as not a nationalization de jure (title stays), de facto control will be fully seized, and the cash flow with it, and a change of ownership will most probably follow down the road, each time “due to special situation” and each time “on special terms”.
Article 4 settles the brutal new truth for owners: 1) this “temporary management” costs are met out of income of the facility/property: Russian state declared it cannot defend infrastructure important objects inside country and punished owners for its own doing by taking their income (not profits, but any incoming cash flow) to pay for defense. 2) if the facility/property to remain under an owner’s management as before, the owner still will spend for such protection, but still will bear the responsibility “for not defending it” and this is in the situation when Russian army cannot defend the strategic port and oil terminal in Novorossiysk with all the anti-aircraft defences, navy anti-air guns and experienced crews in the main navy base.
The Incidence panel named this in advance in the M.3 widget with explicit statement what widget would count as significant movement: both the permission extending beyond energy and strategic facilities, and the requirement of protection at the owner’s expense as the only way to proceed with “usual” operations. And this decree No. 604 does both. The panel’s data run to 21 August. The decree is dated the 24th, and it is quite earlier than author was expecting, such movement signals acceleration of the conversion and war burden shifting further along the ladder. And this time with unhindered direct or even blatant signal that emphasizes the urgency of the need and inability “to fill the gap” with other means.
What is especially important is the reason #3 (the “failure to repair”) for the “temporary management” since nobody legislates against behaviour that is not happening (or that is not definitely expected to widen), because that is the Kremlin’s own confirmation that owners of oil refinery plants that are repeatedly struck have stopped rebuilding, while owners of e-commerce platforms, like Wildberries, for example, are redirecting stock rather than rebuilding what was hit. This is sound business judgement and pure accounting arithmetic rather than a desire to show disloyalty, the most logical business behaviour when the same facility was struck and most probably will be struck again and again.
On the panel’s Oil Refining Ladder of the M.3 widget that behaviour is the last 7th rung: repairs ceasing step is used as an expensive signal that shows admission that what will be even repaired cannot be protected. This ladder in the panel release from 21 of August, stands at the 5th rung, and for now it stays there, because a rung will be triggered with observable events and proofs. But still, the decree tells us which way the observable is running. The 7th rung will be triggered when at least 50% of the damaged plants will be stopped being repaired de facto. This new decree is an attempt to make the logical owner’s answer illegal and/or seize the property and potentially give it away (via nationalization later or via de facto control on cash flow) to loyal figures who will be paid by a virtually free for them property to use some part of this newly gained cash flow to defend the property.
A regime whose claim on power rests on being able to enforce (that comes only along with ability to protect) decided it can tell its largest owners in writing that it can no longer perform its ultimate duties as a state (not to mention as a military enraged state ruling its society via military hysteria). The decree enforcement is the admission and a cry of inability.
The forecast: despite business community asking for it officially for long time, there will be no general funding mechanism for civilian counter-drone/counter-missile protection till the end of this year, including no dedicated fund or subsidy line or budget programme beyond the profit-tax deduction that is already in place (and stated in the panel). The owner will pay the defense bill one way or another. One federal instrument that pays for it refutes this forecast, and I do not need to be the one who finds it.
The panel: incidence.world — v1.9, data as of 21 August 2026, in English, Ukrainian and Russian. CC BY 4.0 · DOI 10.5281/zenodo.22068421