Kenneth Glad
When danger moves quickly, old procedures can leave people guessing. For many residents, unofficial channels have become the first place to look.
In several Russian regions, residents have not been woken by sirens during drone attacks.
According to Polish outlet Onet, many first learned something was happening from explosions or from local Telegram channels.
That pattern became harder to ignore once strikes reached Moscow. Attacks on more distant cities had caused less reaction in the capital, but drones over the Moscow region pushed the issue into wider public debate.
The old system moves slowly
Russia’s civil defense network was shaped in the Soviet era, when planners focused on nuclear war, mass evacuations and industrial disasters.
Today, the threat can be a small drone flying low and reaching its target before a regional chain of command has time to react.
Russia has sirens, SMS alerts, apps and crisis centers, according to Onet, but the system often depends on slow administrative approval.
Former emergency official Aleksandr Chupriyan once described the problem bluntly: “There is no such thing as heightened readiness.”
The weakness is not limited to drone strikes. Floods this spring hit at least 32 Russian regions, including Dagestan and Chechnya.
Authorities said thousands had been evacuated and emergency aid was being distributed. On the ground, Onet reported a far less organized response, however: Blankets, drinking water and food were gathered from nearby shops and wholesalers rather than from ready state reserves.
Transport was also short. Evacuations often relied on whoever could help locally, including residents with boats, cars or other vehicles.
Local officials asked for outside assistance as the scale of the flooding exceeded their capacity.
Moscow avoids the signal
Moscow has Russia’s densest air defense network, yet public warnings there remained limited for a long time.
The reason was not only technical. Onet reported that officials feared panic and the political message that would come with regular air alerts in the capital.
In Belgorod and Kursk, closer to Ukraine, sirens and warnings are more common. Farther inside Russia, alerts have sometimes arrived only after attacks were over, as seen in early strikes on Tuapse.
Civil defense also depends on places to hide. Many Soviet-era shelters still exist in records, but residents have found locked basements, flooded rooms, storage areas and unusable entrances.
In Belgorod and Kursk, authorities responded by installing concrete shelters near schools, stops and city centers.
A country with inherited Cold War infrastructure is now improvising street-level protection against drones.
Source: Onet
