In the Bunker: Drone Strikes Bring the War Home to Russia

On Tuesday, Elena Yurgeneva woke up at home in Rublyovka, a gated community for Moscow’s elite, to loud bangs from a drone strike, walls rattling, and a huge change in customer demand.

“Many people are concerned and asking about properties with a bunker or at least a basement,” said Yurgeneva, an estate agent who specializes in luxury property.

It is a sign of the times for Muscovites that one of Yurgeneva’s books houses a 200-square-metre ferroconcrete bunker, which allows its owners to get “safe from any unforeseen event and even quite comfortably”. allows for.

Tuesday’s drone attack, one of the biggest in Moscow since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, underscored how weakened the country has been by the war.

More than a year after the assault began, Russia is further away from a battlefield victory than ever before and plans to bolster Moscow’s air defenses rather than triumphantly take Kiev as President Vladimir Putin had planned. Used to be.

The increasing attacks inside Russian territory pale in comparison to Russia’s attacks on Ukrainian cities. But they’ve scared Moscow too pretty monde Despite prominent recruiting posters on Rublyovka, it remained largely untouched by the consequences of the war until now.

Tatiana Stanovaya, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, said a defensive Kremlin was “compelled to act as such”. “The goal is not to inflame the situation,” she said. “No one in the Kremlin wants people to wake up.”

In Moscow, most locals continued to go about their business in the hours following Tuesday’s attack. “We haven’t heard anything, and the city appears unchanged today: restaurant terraces are open, and people are enjoying Aperol Spritz,” said a resident three kilometers from a building on Leninsky Prospekt in southern Moscow Said where a drone had crashed.

But Ukraine’s apparently growing ability to strike deep inside Russia has frayed nerves.

Last week, 52 percent of respondents to a poll by the Kremlin-friendly pollster FOM said their friends and family were “worried” rather than “calm” — the highest result in January and the first since Russia wound down the mobilization drive. Gave. end of last year.

Tuesday’s attacks were the latest in a series of drone strikes, cross-border raids, and sabotage behind enemy lines that have escalated in recent weeks ahead of an expected Ukrainian counteroffensive.

Ukraine has not claimed responsibility for any of the attacks. But they appear aimed at undermining Russian morale and redirecting resources away from the front line – moves that help Ukraine roll back Russia’s advances.

“If they are going to strengthen anti-air defenses in Moscow, that means they have to weaken them elsewhere. That’s Ukraine’s goal,” said Pavel Luzin, a visiting scholar at Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.

The attacks have also raised concerns among Western supporters of Ukraine. He has repeatedly urged authorities in Kiev that NATO weapons provided to the country not be involved in any attacks on Russian territory.

After pro-Kiev Russian militias last week raided an area in the Belgorod region from Ukraine, using US-made Humvees and MaxxPro light tactical vehicles, the US reiterated the extent of its support. “In general, we do not support attacks inside Russia,” said a US National Security Council official.

But despite Ukrainian officials’ public denials over attacks on Russian territory, Western officials are convinced that Kiev was behind a number of operations on its enemy’s home soil.

One said, “They (Ukrainians) see targets in Russian-occupied territory and inside Russia as equally fair game,” adding that it was seen as “for defensive purposes”.

In Russia, hardline nationalists have urged the Kremlin to respond to the attacks in Moscow by discarding the facade of normality and declaring a state of total war.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of the infamous Wagner paramilitary group, released a snarky-sounding memo after the drone attacks in which he accused the Defense Ministry of being asleep at the wheel.

“How the hell can you let these drones fly over Moscow?” Prigozhin shouted. “What do ordinary people do when drones armed with explosives fly through their windows?”

But a senior official in Moscow’s mayor’s office said life was soon back to normal. “There was no panic among the establishment. , , This was not the first time Moscow had experienced drone attacks. “Things seem relatively normal.”

The general apathy in Moscow has fueled discontent among residents of Russia’s border with Ukraine, where drone strikes have been common over the past year.

“They are not used to drone strikes and incoming artillery fire like we are,” said Sergei, a resident of the Belgorod region bordering Ukraine.

“When I hear a loud noise, my immediate thought is an explosion. But when a Muscovite hears a loud noise that turns out to be an explosion, their first thought is that a lightning storm has occurred. Yes,” said Sergei.

The regular attacks have infuriated Vyacheslav Gladkov, the governor of Belgorod, who said on Monday the region was living in a “de facto state of war”. He claimed that the only way to protect it from Ukrainian artillery fire was to capture neighboring Kharkiv – a move not even suggested by Putin.

Shebekino, a town just a stone’s throw from the border with Ukraine with about 40,000 residents, has been one of the biggest influences and features regularly in Gladkov’s social media posts.

Although locals initially tried to ignore the regular shelling and drone strikes, that changed one day in late October; The “Galeria” shopping center in Shebekino burned down after the shelling and another shopping center was partially destroyed. “That’s when people started to understand the seriousness of the situation,” said Alexander, a local blogger.

Following these incidents, some entrepreneurs opted to close their businesses, while others began reinforcing windows with sandbags. Some families started leaving. Others questioned how long they could tolerate the ongoing attacks.

Although Alexander chose to stay in Shebekino, he began to save money in case he needed to start fresh elsewhere. Like other residents, he has grown accustomed to water and power disruptions from the shelling, just as children have grown accustomed to the closure of schools.

“Some people are beginning to feel that Shebekino has been completely abandoned,” Alexander said. State TV presenters consistently mispronounce its name and often refer to the city as a village or settlement, which they said downplays the danger.

Tension has risen in recent days, particularly after pro-Ukraine militias raided the area. Terrified by the sirens, Alexander said, locals have fled to bomb shelters — only to find that many are locked, unwilling to hold them, or even flooded.

Luzin of Tufts University said rising inequality threatens to undermine Russia’s popular support for the war, exacerbating Moscow’s long-standing grudge about its concentration of wealth and power.

“A lot of places in Russia are feeling schadenfreude or even joy when it hits Moscow,” Luzin said. “People are upset not only about the war, but also about the growing poverty and inequality between the capital and the regions.”

“Many of them would be happy if Moscow was bombed more – especially if it is not ordinary people dying, but drones flying over gated communities, ministries and the Kremlin,” he said.

Additional reporting by Felicia Schwartz in Washington

On Tuesday, Elena Yurgeneva woke up at home in Rublyovka, a gated community for Moscow’s elite, to loud bangs from a drone strike, walls rattling, and a huge change in customer demand.

“Many people are concerned and asking about properties with a bunker or at least a basement,” said Yurgeneva, an estate agent who specializes in luxury property.

It is a sign of the times for Muscovites that one of Yurgeneva’s books houses a 200-square-metre ferroconcrete bunker, which allows its owners to get “safe from any unforeseen event and even quite comfortably”. allows for.

Tuesday’s drone attack, one of the biggest in Moscow since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, underscored how weakened the country has been by the war.

More than a year after the assault began, Russia is further away from a battlefield victory than ever before and plans to bolster Moscow’s air defenses rather than triumphantly take Kiev as President Vladimir Putin had planned. Used to be.

The increasing attacks inside Russian territory pale in comparison to Russia’s attacks on Ukrainian cities. But they’ve scared Moscow too pretty monde Despite prominent recruiting posters on Rublyovka, it remained largely untouched by the consequences of the war until now.

Tatiana Stanovaya, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, said a defensive Kremlin was “compelled to act as such”. “The goal is not to inflame the situation,” she said. “No one in the Kremlin wants people to wake up.”

In Moscow, most locals continued to go about their business in the hours following Tuesday’s attack. “We haven’t heard anything, and the city appears unchanged today: restaurant terraces are open, and people are enjoying Aperol Spritz,” said a resident three kilometers from a building on Leninsky Prospekt in southern Moscow Said where a drone had crashed.

But Ukraine’s apparently growing ability to strike deep inside Russia has frayed nerves.

Last week, 52 percent of respondents to a poll by the Kremlin-friendly pollster FOM said their friends and family were “worried” rather than “calm” — the highest result in January and the first since Russia wound down the mobilization drive. Gave. end of last year.

Tuesday’s attacks were the latest in a series of drone strikes, cross-border raids, and sabotage behind enemy lines that have escalated in recent weeks ahead of an expected Ukrainian counteroffensive.

Ukraine has not claimed responsibility for any of the attacks. But they appear aimed at undermining Russian morale and redirecting resources away from the front line – moves that help Ukraine roll back Russia’s advances.

“If they are going to strengthen anti-air defenses in Moscow, that means they have to weaken them elsewhere. That’s Ukraine’s goal,” said Pavel Luzin, a visiting scholar at Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.

The attacks have also raised concerns among Western supporters of Ukraine. He has repeatedly urged authorities in Kiev that NATO weapons provided to the country not be involved in any attacks on Russian territory.

After pro-Kiev Russian militias last week raided an area in the Belgorod region from Ukraine, using US-made Humvees and MaxxPro light tactical vehicles, the US reiterated the extent of its support. “In general, we do not support attacks inside Russia,” said a US National Security Council official.

But despite Ukrainian officials’ public denials over attacks on Russian territory, Western officials are convinced that Kiev was behind a number of operations on its enemy’s home soil.

One said, “They (Ukrainians) see targets in Russian-occupied territory and inside Russia as equally fair game,” adding that it was seen as “for defensive purposes”.

In Russia, hardline nationalists have urged the Kremlin to respond to the attacks in Moscow by discarding the facade of normality and declaring a state of total war.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of the infamous Wagner paramilitary group, released a snarky-sounding memo after the drone attacks in which he accused the Defense Ministry of being asleep at the wheel.

“How the hell can you let these drones fly over Moscow?” Prigozhin shouted. “What do ordinary people do when drones armed with explosives fly through their windows?”

But a senior official in Moscow’s mayor’s office said life was soon back to normal. “There was no panic among the establishment. , , This was not the first time Moscow had experienced drone attacks. “Things seem relatively normal.”

The general apathy in Moscow has fueled discontent among residents of Russia’s border with Ukraine, where drone strikes have been common over the past year.

“They are not used to drone strikes and incoming artillery fire like we are,” said Sergei, a resident of the Belgorod region bordering Ukraine.

“When I hear a loud noise, my immediate thought is an explosion. But when a Muscovite hears a loud noise that turns out to be an explosion, their first thought is that a lightning storm has occurred. Yes,” said Sergei.

The regular attacks have infuriated Vyacheslav Gladkov, the governor of Belgorod, who said on Monday the region was living in a “de facto state of war”. He claimed that the only way to protect it from Ukrainian artillery fire was to capture neighboring Kharkiv – a move not even suggested by Putin.

Shebekino, a town just a stone’s throw from the border with Ukraine with about 40,000 residents, has been one of the biggest influences and features regularly in Gladkov’s social media posts.

Although locals initially tried to ignore the regular shelling and drone strikes, that changed one day in late October; The “Galeria” shopping center in Shebekino burned down after the shelling and another shopping center was partially destroyed. “That’s when people started to understand the seriousness of the situation,” said Alexander, a local blogger.

Following these incidents, some entrepreneurs opted to close their businesses, while others began reinforcing windows with sandbags. Some families started leaving. Others questioned how long they could tolerate the ongoing attacks.

Although Alexander chose to stay in Shebekino, he began to save money in case he needed to start fresh elsewhere. Like other residents, he has grown accustomed to water and power disruptions from the shelling, just as children have grown accustomed to the closure of schools.

“Some people are beginning to feel that Shebekino has been completely abandoned,” Alexander said. State TV presenters consistently mispronounce its name and often refer to the city as a village or settlement, which they said downplays the danger.

Tension has risen in recent days, particularly after pro-Ukraine militias raided the area. Terrified by the sirens, Alexander said, locals have fled to bomb shelters — only to find that many are locked, unwilling to hold them, or even flooded.

Luzin of Tufts University said rising inequality threatens to undermine Russia’s popular support for the war, exacerbating Moscow’s long-standing grudge about its concentration of wealth and power.

“A lot of places in Russia are feeling schadenfreude or even joy when it hits Moscow,” Luzin said. “People are upset not only about the war, but also about the growing poverty and inequality between the capital and the regions.”

“Many of them would be happy if Moscow was bombed more – especially if it is not ordinary people dying, but drones flying over gated communities, ministries and the Kremlin,” he said.

Additional reporting by Felicia Schwartz in Washington