"Even the dog didn't wake up" - as the Russian media reported on the drone attack on Moscow

In their latest editions, Russian daily newspapers did not avoid the topic of the most massive drone attack on Moscow since the beginning of the war

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Photo: EPA/YURI KOCHETKOV
Photo: EPA/YURI KOCHETKOV
Disclaimer: The translations are mostly done through AI translator and might not be 100% accurate.

Like Russian President Vladimir Putin, who showed calmness regarding the drone attack on Moscow, the Russian media reported what happened on May 30 without drama.

The BBC Russian service has studied the reports of the Russian media about the drone attack on the country's capital.

In their latest editions, Russian daily newspapers did not avoid the topic of the most massive drone attack on Moscow since the beginning of the war, and state channels broadcast the statements of eyewitnesses who claimed that "they neither heard nor saw anything, or that even the dog did not move."

The newspaper "Kommersant" placed in the center of the front page the report of the correspondent from the Kremlin, Andrey Kolesnikov, who, in his usual ironic manner, wrote about the fact that those gathered at the meeting with President Putin in the center of Zotov (a former bakery) were not worried about the drone attack on the Russian capital , as well as the possibility of canceling the event with the head of state precisely because of this attack.

In Kolesnik's report, Putin's speech regarding the attack on Moscow is given a lot of space, but there is no mention of the number of drones or the fact that three drones hit residential buildings - the emphasis is on the fact that the drone attack on Moscow will be investigated as a war crime.

And the newspaper "Vedomosti" extensively reported the reactions of the deputies and their proposals to ban people from filming downed drones.

Denis Fedutinov, editor-in-chief of the Unmanned Aviation portal, concludes that "generally speaking, the anti-aircraft systems of the Russian army have demonstrated the ability to deal with such targets with fairly high efficiency."

The "Moscow Komsomol" allowed itself to convey the "alarming" forecast of a veteran of the military intelligence service, colonel in the reserve Rustem Klupov, who wears the Hero of Russia order.

"You have to understand that it's going to be more difficult. Attacks can be more frequent and more precise. That's why people living near military facilities should be careful - enemy drones will try to hit them.

"On the other hand, military facilities are covered by our anti-aircraft defense. So, where is safe - you can't guess," he concluded.

"I didn't see anything, I have poor eyesight"

Meanwhile, if the news on the central channels is to be believed, the residents of Moscow and the Moscow region are not showing too much concern about what happened.

It is worth noting, however, that the pro-state central channels devoted an unusually large amount of time in the program to the topic of the attack on Moscow.

Thus, on the First Channel, the presenter said that "in the raid" on the capital, "according to the Ministry of Defense, a total of eight drones" participated and that three "fell on houses", and "false information" that was circulating on social media was also mentioned networks about the number of drones.

The leitmotif of the statements of all eyewitnesses was "everything is fine".

"There is no panic, thank God," says one of the tenants, who immediately went to bed after the incident, according to the report.

"I woke up in the morning and found 100 messages, everyone is in a panic, and I ask: what happened?", she says in the First Channel report.

"There's no need to panic, everything will be fine," repeats another eyewitness.

According to him, even "the dog didn't wake up" at the residents of Leninova Street, where a drone flew into the apartment "at full speed".

"The police had to wake up the owners of the apartment into which the drone flew," said correspondent Panyushkin.

"At that moment we were sleeping. We went to sleep quite late, at three in the morning, and we didn't hear how it happened," the woman confirms his words.

In an evening report on the Rossiya 1 channel, a resident of the apartment on Leninovo Street into which the drone flew said that she was woken up by "knocking and ringing at the door".

She could not describe the scene of the incident: "I didn't see anything because my vision is poor."

Despite the fact that most of the reports were devoted to three places in Moscow, where drones hit residential buildings, the correspondent also mentioned the suburbs of Moscow, where fragments of Ukrainian drones were found.

"The primary list of the crash sites of the downed drones" in Podmoskovlje was published on Wednesday morning by the member of the State Duma, United Russia, Alexander Histein.

Apart from him, none of the officials mentioned the places around Moscow where the drones fell.

The Meduza publication, declared a "foreign agent" in Russia and unwelcome in Russia, claims that the Kremlin's handbook on monitoring drone strikes recommended that Histein's comments be quoted only in a negative light.

Ilya Shumanov, the general director of Transparency International - Russia, an organization also declared a "foreign agent", published on the Telegram channel a list of representatives of the Russian elite who live in places near Moscow where drones allegedly fell.

But in the evening news programs on NTV, after correspondent Ina Osipova "presented all the latest information," it was said that "all eight drones were destroyed."

Then it was repeated once again that "the girls into whose apartment the remains of the drone flew through the window did not even wake up".

Based on these and several similar statements, the NTV correspondent concluded that "the main goal of this attack was of a psychological nature".

"Kiev's goal was to cause panic among the population, but it failed."


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