Deadly Ukrainian drone strike on Moscow suburb leaves residents unsettled and ambivalent about the war
Last week, Ukraine carried out its largest drone attack on Russia’s capital since the start of the full-scale war. More than 140 drones entered Russian territory in the early hours of September 10, according to the Russian authorities, and air defenses reportedly shot down at least 20 in the Moscow region. The most heavily affected town was Ramenskoye, a Moscow suburb where drone strikes damaged three apartment buildings, injuring three residents and killing one. The attack came amid news that Ukraine may soon get permission from allies to use Western long-range missiles to strike Russian territory — and the Moscow region is full of facilities that it could target. A correspondent from the independent journalists’ cooperative Bereg went to Ramenskoye to find out how local residents are feeling after the attack and whether they’re afraid of being targeted again. Meduza shares a lightly abridged translation of their report.
The names in this story have been changed for security reasons.
A elderly man stands shirtless on one of his building’s communal balconies, smoking a cigarette as he looks into the distance. Across the street stands a pale blue building that’s been badly damaged by a drone explosion: there are gaping holes where windows used to be, the balcony frames are partially melted, and the facade is crumbling. The mutilated structure is impossible to miss, but the man seems to deliberately cast his gaze elsewhere.
In the vicinity of the disfigured apartment complex, which was hit by a Ukrainian drone on September 10, is a railway station, a market, a community center, a stadium, and several schools — in other words, the area is almost always bustling with people. Today, just a few days after the attack, is no exception: pensioners sell produce out of boxes on the street, teenagers zoom around on electric scooters, and mothers run errands with their children in strollers. As soon as you enter the courtyard of the blue apartment building, however, the atmosphere seems to shift.
“Now it’s become a reflex: the train goes by, and I flinch!” a young woman in a plaid shirt tells her friend.
“They say [the drone] failed to notice our building — otherwise it would have hit us!” a man holding a children’s bicycle explains to a group of his neighbors.
“I thought to myself, ‘An explosion! It probably killed someone. I’ll find out in the morning,” a young man in a suit says to the woman walking with him, a disoriented smile on his face.
The strike occurred at about 4:00 a.m. local time, but some people in the area woke up earlier — according to them, something had been “buzzing incessantly” since about 2:00 a.m. “Honestly, I didn’t expect it to reach us,” a woman named Polina, whose building wasn’t affected by the attack, tells Bereg.
“I thought, ‘Thank God it missed us.’ Then suddenly my phone rings, and it’s my sister. She says, ‘We’re coming over right now,’” Polina continues. Her sister’s family lives in the light-blue building, and while their apartment wasn’t damaged, the first responders who came to the scene wouldn’t let them return for several hours.
“My husband, who’s deployed in the special military operation, was shocked, [saying,] ‘How could we let this happen?’” Polina’s friend Lyudmila chimes in. “He’s even joked about coming here himself and shooting down the drones with a rifle — Russian-style air defense!”
Polina and Lyudmila believe the drones were launched “from somewhere nearby”; Ramenskoye is surrounded by forests where drone operators could feasibly escape detection. The women also believe the Russian authorities knew the attack was being planned.
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“At 1:00 a.m., they shut down all of the airports. That means they knew, but they didn’t bother to warn us,” Lyudmila says.
“Maybe to avoid causing panic,” Polina suggests.
“Maybe. But on the other hand, people could have gotten away from the windows and at least packed up some essentials and left. Maybe there wouldn’t have been any casualties,” says Lyudmila.
The woman killed in the attack was in bed when the crash occurred. The drone flew into her apartment window and exploded, dislodging a piece of the wall that struck her in the head.
Polina and Lyudmila hope the drone attack was an “isolated case,” but they still think the city needs to establish a proper alert system for possible future attacks — otherwise, they say, you “might not even wake up.”
In a few windows on the blue building’s upper floors, the lights turn on. Residents in the courtyard look up in surprise, whispering to each other about whether it’s safe to return to the partially destroyed apartments and use the electricity there.
“Those poor people need help: a lot of them have outstanding mortgages,” says Ekaterina, gesturing towards the lit-up windows. She’s still paying off an apartment in the building herself, and she fears the damage from the drone attack might not be covered by insurance, leaving her neighbors paying off loans for burnt-out units. Her own apartment wasn’t damaged, but she finds this cold comfort: “We had such a beautiful building and now the children will have to look at this.”
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Ekaterina has a six-year-old daughter who went into a panic on the night of the attack, her mother says. Several days later, the girl still hasn’t recovered: she has trouble going to sleep at night, and Ekaterina is thinking about finding a child psychologist. “When it all started, she started screaming, ‘Run! We’re gonna be burned alive! They’re going to kill us!’” she recounts.
Asked whether she plans on moving her family to a new area, Ekaterina just chuckles. “Where would we go — to Siberia, to the moon? There’s no point.” In her view, drones and missiles can reach anywhere and it’s the Russian authorities’ job to keep citizens safe from Ukrainian attacks. “I fully support our president, and I admire him. But how could this happen?” she says, motioning again towards the charred building. “This is scaring people, angering them. I mean, come on — the war is in its third year, and still nothing’s been fixed?”
Most of the photos circulating on social media showed the blue building, which received the most damage. But two other buildings in town were struck that night as well. At one of them, a 17-story building, the police cordon has already been removed and the surrounding area cleared of debris. The second building still has protective barriers in place, and two rescuers in protective suits and helmets are clearing debris from the damaged apartments. As you walk through the courtyard, charred fragments crunch underfoot along with small pieces of concrete, glass, and plastic.
“As soon as it struck, I made everyone get in the bathtub!” a short man tells his neighbors excitedly.
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“Well, we decided to go into the hallway. Because, guys, if the apartment catches fire like that, we won’t make it out!” says a young woman holding a Yorkshire Terrier.
The neighbors exchange theories about where the drones were ultimately headed. Some people think they were targeting the Zhukovsky Airport, about five kilometers (three miles) away, but that “they got off track because of jamming devices.” Others are convinced the Ukrainian military wanted to carry out a “sabotage attack” with “as many victims as possible” and chose the largest high-rises in the area.
“During the day, people from the Investigative Committee came by,” says the girl with the Yorkie.
“What did they want?” an older man in sweatpants asks her.
“Well, we’re considered the victims.”
“Victims of what?”“Of the terrorist attack!” the girl says. (The Russian authorities have officially classified the drone attack as a terrorist attack.)
The man waves his hand dismissively and reaches for a cigarette. Two women then come out of the building holding sheets of paper with the building’s apartments color-coded. The residents explain that the women are inspecting the apartments and documenting the damage so that people can claim compensation later.
“Nobody’s going to compensate anyone for the windows; they'll replace those themselves,” the man in sweatpants says. “[And the Investigative Committee employees] are just blowing smoke. ‘Investigating’ — what a joke!”
Eventually, the people gathered in the courtyard start dispersing: a meeting with city officials is scheduled to take place soon in a nearby school. The residents will supposedly learn more about how they’ll be compensated for their damaged apartments.
At the school gate, a woman in a pink pantsuit stands on duty: Natalia Aseeva, the head of the city’s education committee. Only invited officials and residents affected by the attacks are allowed to attend the meeting, and Aseeva carefully checks the IDs of everyone trying to enter.
“You’re not registered [as living] here!” she tells one man.
“What am I supposed to do? I’m registered in Moscow, but I live here!” he protests.
“There are a lot of people in there already, they’ll explain it to you afterwards. Just hang out outside for a while,” she says.
“Fucking idiots!” the man says under his breath as he leaves.
Bereg’s correspondent is also barred from entering the meeting.
According to local media, the authorities promised during the meeting to “help repair damaged vehicles free of charge,” though it’s unclear whether people whose vehicles were damaged beyond repair will receive compensation. Registered tenants were promised payments of 30,000 rubles ($330), though no timeline was provided. People who are both registered in the damaged apartments and own them will purportedly receive 60,000 rubles ($660). The authorities also vowed to replace shattered and blown-out windows by the end of the month.
“People say it’s going to be a major renovation,” says Valentina Lvovna, a longtime Ramenskoye resident. Her own home wasn’t affected by the attack, but she saw one of the explosions that hit another building from her window.
Unlike her neighbors, Valentina remains optimistic and tries not to dwell on the possibility that Ramenskoye will be targeted again. “Everyone has their own destiny and there’s no escaping it,” she says. “Things might not always be easy, but you have to pull yourself together. And if necessary, take a little pill to calm your nerves — once a day.”
Valentina tells Bereg’s correspondent she read in the news that 144 drones targeted Russia on the night of September 9–10, and she asks if there was damage comparable to what happened in Ramenskoye anywhere else in the affected regions. The journalist tells her that on that particular night, there wasn’t.
“Life is beautiful and amazing!” Valentina replies. “We need to hang on and not give into panic.”
“All right, Valentina, let’s go,” her friend says, gently nudging her.
“We need to pray to the Almighty for this war to end!” Valentina whispers as she tells Bereg’s correspondent goodbye. “Lord, help us already! Only a peace deal can solve this, but as you can see, they don’t want one. The U.K. doesn’t want it. Fine, then. Let’s just hope everything turns out well!”
Story by Bereg. Abridged translation by Sam Breazeale.