“Who would have declared such a war on us in Moscow?”
“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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In a video that went viral, a well-known blogger complained about how rude it is for drones to be launched “when people are sleeping.”
“Ukraine is going crazy. Drones at three in the morning. Have you lost your mind?”
This made me laugh way harder than it should. Like, "I don't mind the war but can we keep it from 9:00-5:00? Oh and I was thinking of stepping out early on Friday so maybe call it a half day?"
A Soviet Russia joke: A Russian man was accosted by KGB goons and had his expensive watch stolen by them. After the KGB had left, the unfortunate man then cried out loudly, "The Swiss stole my Russian watch!". A bystander heard this and retorted, "You meant the Russians stole your Swiss watch". The man then replied, "Yes, but you said it!"
The Muscovites are not stupid. They are merely beaten down so hard and so long that they know to feign ignorance.
I dunno, if they were just afraid of speaking out, why even talk to the media? Though I can certainly imagine that many of the smarter people knew better than to talk, leaving only those with chronic foot-in-mouth syndrome to get interviewed.
The idiots probably believe the propaganda. Hell, we've scene over the last few years how prepared people are to believe someone who is charismatic even if they're full of crap. Or just very loud.
"The Nazis Russians entered this war under the rather childish delusion that they were going to bomb everybody else and nobody was going to bomb them."
Besides being a quote as the other chap pointed out, to enter something in this manner doesn't suggest they didn't also start it, it's quite acceptable grammatically.
Pip pip tally ho!
*rides away into the sunset on Churchill's back"
I completely agree with you and find it sad you got downvoted.
These people live in a harsh dictatorship with nopress freedom. In such a state, they don't have a say in what happens in many areas of their lives, let alone in the course of a war.
I don't know if the ukrainian drones are targetting civilians, but if they are nothing makes it ok. We (the Allies) buried civilians under shells in Dresde during WWII and it has always disgusted me. These tactics might be efficient to bring morale down but they should imo never be used.
If Ukrainians generals want payback for what they have been going through in this fucking unjust, brutal and unjustified war, these drones might be better used targeting the rich mansions of Putin's entourage.
So propaganda, government control over media, and threats against anyone who questions the government story works to control public reality and opinions.
It's very sad. They are locked into informational echo chambers that only repeat the words of state media and anyone repeating anything else gets arrested or a 'visit'. The only ones who know how to bypass this are mostly younger tech savvy Russians with VPNs etc who care enough.
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.
It's not about doing damage. It's about reminding Russians that the only reason civilians aren't dying in Moscow is because Ukraine chooses not to stoop to Russia's level.
Honestly I hate the way this article is written, like yeah, let's dunk on some random Russian citizens for complaining when things are worse in Ukraine. As if they have some kind of say in what Putin and his cronies are up to. I'm not against the Ukrainian drone attacks, but we need to stop with this general anti-Russian sentiment.
Whether you like it or not people are going to carry resentment towards the Russians, as it's their government that is over in Ukraine literally committing war crimes.
It's the irony of Russians complaining when Ukraine does even an iota of punching back that frustrates people.
Russians are probably the ones behind the drones. Either anti-war/anti-Putin Russians, or false-flag attacks by the government on its citizens. It's unlikely the drones flew all the way from Ukraine.
Yeah everyone in the world has to deal with Putin the poisoner... except the Russian people. We can't possibly expect the Russian people to deal with that shithead. Nope, it's Putin is the responsibility of everyone in the world other the the people of Russia!
If Russians don't like anti-Russian sentiment then they can start doing something about the guy that's in their Kremlin that's fucking everything up for everyone else.
Lol, let the xenophobia flow through your down votes. This is what you get for having a normal take. Americans love to hate other populations based on what their corrupt governments do. Ignorance is life here.
It is ironic that you are the one making ignorant and bigoted generalisations, especially when you categorise everyone here as Americans. Which we definitely aren't.
America had its turn when it invaded Iraq. Americans started wearing Canadian patches when traveling aboard. Iraq wasn't as bad as Ukrane. American turned on support for the war after 2 years. Russia has an election coming up. They should use it - even if it is rigged.
I hate to be a Russian whataboutist but the American record of antiwar protest isn't stellar either. Imo the closer comparison is Vietnam, that was the last one where we were forced to draft people. And it did result in significant protests from multiple groups (incomparable to Iraq imo. What exactly did the Iraq protests 2 years in accomplish, again?)
The vietnam protests were actively suppressed by intelligence services and ultimately followed in the 80s by a wave of reactionary public sentiment that set the tone for republican politics even to this day (and we can all see how well that's going).