“Who would have declared such a war on us in Moscow?”
After six consecutive days of drone attacks on the Moscow region this week, one would think the shock of sudden late-night explosions might compel some Russians to consider what Ukrainian civilians have endured during 550 days of relentless Russian attacks.
Instead, some residents near the Russian capital have taken to social media to vent about the inconvenience of being woken up in the middle of the night, question why the “international community” isn’t coming to their rescue, and blame Ukrainian “terrorists” for targeting civilian areas. (Never mind that Moscow has repeatedly attacked residential areas in Ukraine with Iranian-made Shahed drones.)
No injuries have been reported in the recent string of attacks, and Russian officials claim to have shot down most of the drones that they say caused only “minor damage” to a building in Moscow City and several broken windows elsewhere. Kyiv has not confirmed or denied involvement in the drone strikes.
Russian media widely covered the attacks, airing interviews with residents who showed off their broken windows.
“It was scary to go up to the window,” said one man recounting his shock to wake up and find his window shattered. “This is the first time anything like this has happened to me.”
Separately, he told Deutsche Welle, “At first, there was panic. I thought the building had been hit by a shell.”
“It’s very scary. What if it hits the house next time?” another resident told DW, noting that she has a young child in the home. “Who would have declared such a war on us in Moscow?” she asked, unironically.
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archive link: https://archive.is/xFkDe
Arrests and visits are not that widespread yet. Problems are atomization of society and lack of trust, that doesn’t help organizing for literally anything too. Someone in higher comment remembered the long and hardly broken by 90s history of opression, but there’s an old anecdote: ‘If Stalin is such a monster, who sniched on others millions of times?’. If you don’t vet a person\company before dropping heavy topics and opinions, they can tell on you just out of spite. On a local, small people level, folks aren’t found out by secret services, they are snitched on. A girl painted a pro-peace picture and teacher called a police, resulting in her father imprisoned and her put into shelter. Some guy overheard a couple talking in a cafe and boyfriend was pressed face-to-floor before they had a chance to leave. Some college students snitched on a classmate just for lulz to FSB and she got a prison sentence out of blue, she was 19. It’s despicable, but these facts aren’t systemic oppression, but rather ugly POSes having a new leverage over others. When Zs are plastered everywhere, you aren’t really sure who’d hear you at all times.
Telegram is very widespread and not blocked (while most VPNs are). Many under 45 follow the situation there, see videos and news. They just don’t know what to do with that, to fully comprehend what’s going on themselves and see their role in it, and totally unlikely to talk about it publicly. It’s going back to close kitchen talks of later USSR. Everyone understands everything, but mantra comes to mind. Not many take a hard stance now, but try to put together a Frankenstein’s creature of conflicting thoughts\bits of information to somehow explain the situation (like the viral beheading done by Wagner), or isolate themselves from it altogether to keep moving. Only to then get very surprised, when this thrown away and long forgotten puzzle suddenly blows up under their bed.
A very weird place to observe.
That’s the brave new world: everyone and everything has a digital trace now and therefore is transparent to oppressive government. A world of a dream for a dictator.