What if drone strikes cripple a fifth of Russia's refining?
Sustained drone strikes knocking out a fifth of Russian refining slash product exports, lifting global diesel and gasoline cracks while crude rises only modestly (lost runs free up Russian crude for export); long product cracks plus a VIX bid is the trade. Directly rhymes with the early-2024 Ukrainian refinery-drone campaign, which spiked global diesel cracks and forced Russia into a temporary gasoline export ban, with flat Brent moving far less. Transmission: tighter Russian product exports pull Europe/Turkey/Africa onto other refiners; forward angle: 2026 strikes hit a market with thinner global refining buffers.
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The butterfly cascade
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Our model's odds (electric blue) over time vs the market's (Polymarket, amber), from the past toward the 0–6 months horizon. Each dot is a real macro event that nudged the probability — green pushed it up, red pushed it down. Tap a dot for the source. Loading the probability audit trail…
What it would mean
If this plays out, it is a risk-off shock. Sustained drone strikes knock out a fifth of Russian refining, slashing product exports and lifting cracks. The trigger decomposes into signed root‑shocks — Geopolitical risk ▲ · Oil supply risk ▲ — which propagate through our causal graph to the markets below.