On 7 October the official publication portal posted government decree No. 1291, signed on 2 October — nineteen pages, a scan without a text layer, which we read page by page this session. It amends nine government acts at once, and the amendments share one subject: what happens to the price of heat and water when the war reaches the pipes.
The answer the decree gives is a channel, not a payment. Money that heat and water utilities spend on defending their sites from drone attack, on “meeting the needs of the Armed Forces”, and on rebuilding what strikes have destroyed becomes a justified expense inside the regulated tariff — the price households and businesses pay. Nowhere in the nineteen pages is there a rouble figure.
The words put into the pricing rules
In the pricing fundamentals for heat supply — the rules under decree No. 1075, in force since 2012 — the class of organisations entitled to ask for an out-of-cycle tariff review is extended by one long insertion into point 74. Translated:
“…and (or) which implements measures to ensure the security of heat-supply objects, including on the basis of decisions (recommendations) of state authorities… for ensuring security, assisting in the solution of tasks of defence against threats of attack with the use of unmanned aerial vehicles, and also for the implementation of measures for meeting the needs of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, other troops, military formations, bodies and the needs of the population…”
The water rules get the mirror image. A new subpoint “m” of point 65 of the water-pricing fundamentals (decree No. 406) lists what now counts as an expense the tariff must cover: protective structures of civil defence, constructions shielding equipment and buildings, “special technical means, including means of detection of and counteraction to unmanned apparatus”, special vehicles of a higher protection class, protection means for personnel, incentive payments to staff, the cost of guarding the site — where these are not already counted, or not counted in full, in operating expenses.
Both sets of rules date the trigger the same way: destruction or damage of a production facility from 1 January 2025 onward “as a result of the commission of an act (acts) of unlawful interference connected with the use of conventional means of destruction (including a terrorist act) or with sabotage”. And both now accept applications that cite not only money spent but money to be spent: where the old wording said information “on incurred expenses”, the new one says “on incurred and (or) planned expenses”.
A criminal case opens the ceiling
Russia caps how fast a household's total utility bill may rise: a yearly index per region, with a bounded deviation per municipality. Exceeding the cap requires a justification. Decree No. 1291 rewrites the list of documents that justification is built on — in the rules on citizens' payment indexes, decree No. 400 — and the new list begins with this:
“…with the attachment of a copy of the order on the initiation of a criminal case, and (or) a copy of a decision (an extract from the minutes of a session) of a permanently acting body… and (or) another document, including one confirming that the destruction and (or) damage of the heat-supply object, the object of the centralised system of hot water supply, cold water supply and (or) water disposal occurred exclusively as a result of the commission of an act (acts) of unlawful interference connected with the use of conventional means of destruction (including a terrorist act) or with sabotage.”
The order opening a criminal case over a strike, in other words, is now a tariff document: it certifies the event that lets a municipality's bills rise past the regional ceiling.
Sanctions off, reporting light, disclosure dark
Three further moves complete the mechanism. First, for 2026 and 2027 the penalty provisions of both pricing systems — the clauses that punish a utility for missing its concession obligations or not delivering its investment programme — are not applied to these organisations, provided the money went to the security and restoration costs the decree describes. A utility that skipped its planned investment because it was paying for drone nets does not answer for the skipped investment.
Second, the evidence threshold drops. Security expenses may be confirmed on interim accounting or statistical reports and counted into the next regulation period, rather than waiting for audited annual accounts.
Third, the public will not see the detail. Both disclosure standards — for heat (decree No. 110) and for water (decree No. 108) — get a new point 4¹: in 2026 and 2027, the parts of investment programmes that concern protection and post-strike restoration are not subject to disclosure. The expense is justified, the bill may rise, and the line item is closed.
There is also a fourth move, outside pricing altogether. Decree No. 931 on housing law gains a subpoint: if heat, water, sewage, gas or electricity facilities are destroyed or damaged by such an act and performance has become impossible, the provider is released from the quality requirements for communal services. Where a strike has made the service undeliverable, the law no longer measures it.
What the decree does not say
Any amount. How many facilities qualify, what the measures cost, how far a bill may rise — none of it is in the text. The decree builds the channel and does not name a volume. This is the design, not an omission: a per-event payment would have a sum; a standing cost category does not.
What was repealed with it. The decree declares void point 13 of the 2017 amendments to the payment-index rules (decree No. 1097). What that point said we could not verify: the legal databases carrying consolidated texts are unreachable from this environment, so part of the amendments can be described only as edits, not as results.
What starts in 2027. Two paragraphs of the amendments take effect only on 1 March 2027, and the core review rights in both pricing systems run until that same date. Which sentences are deferred cannot be pinned down without the consolidated texts; the dates themselves are in the decree's own closing points.
Whether electricity and gas follow. The quality-requirements release names electricity and gas facilities alongside heat and water; the tariff amendments do not touch those industries. Whether mirror decrees are coming, the text does not say.
What this means for the series we track
Heat and water tariffs are administered prices, and they sit inside the consumer basket. Our annual inflation indicator reads 6.3% year on year through August, scoring 95 of 100 against a pre-war average pace of 4.6% and a registered trouble line at 40%. Our inflation guide explains the administered layer: prices that move when the state decides they move. This decree is such a decision — it permits specific regulated prices to rise above the usual ceiling, with the size and timing left to regional tariff organs, which publish their decisions separately. We note the direction the construction points in and do not convert it into a forecast.
The larger fact is fiscal. Strikes on utilities and the defence against them cost money, and this decree answers whose: not the budget's. Carried in the tariff, these costs appear in no expenditure line, raise no deficit, and reach the public as a utility bill — the same quiet route that took the 2027 regulated power price off its indexation formulas the day before. The strength index is 46.2 of 100, in the stress zone. This morning's run moved one reading: money supply growth is 13.2% year on year at 1 October, from 12.9% a month earlier.