The decree, signed on August 24, stipulates that external management may be introduced if authorities conclude that the owner has not taken measures to ensure the security of facilities, including against drone attacks, or has not restored them in a timely manner.

Critical infrastructure is defined as facilities of the fuel and energy complex, industry, transport and logistics complexes, utilities and transport infrastructure, communication towers, as well as "other facilities of particular importance for ensuring security."

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said there is no list of companies yet for which external management will be introduced. The government is to form the list after analyzing the situation. Peskov explained the need for the decree by saying that enterprise owners "do not pay due attention" to anti-drone security.

First Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov stressed that the measure is "not about nationalization or changing the form of ownership" and that the mechanism does not imply mass application. According to him, decisions will be "targeted and well-considered."

Analysts called the decree's wording vague. Investment banker Yevgeny Kogan wrote on his Telegram channel that almost any large asset, from a warehouse complex to a data center, could be brought under the document's scope if desired. In his assessment, warehouses of Wildberries and Ozon, which regularly come under attack, are particularly at risk.

Novaya Gazeta Europe notes that the decree was adopted amid strikes on oil terminals linked to businessman Ilya Traber and on marketplace warehouses. According to The Insider's calculations, at least 2.1 million square meters of storage space were damaged in attacks on Wildberries distribution centers.

Nikolai Petrov, senior research fellow at NEST, believes the authorities want to "force businesses to defend themselves and not ask anything from the state, and, secondly, to quickly restore everything under the threat of losing everything." Natalia Mukhina, head of monitoring and evaluation at Transparency International Russia, called the decree "another mechanism for seizing control over private property."

Alexander Shokhin, head of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, demanded a clearer definition of what constitutes "untimely restoration" of a facility and called for regulating the responsibility of temporary managers for security.