‘Maybe Putin isn’t even being told about this?’ Muscovites in two bombed districts react to Ukraine’s drone strikes.

In the early hours of May 17, Ukraine launched a massive drone strike on the Moscow area, killing three people and wounding 16. Two districts of the capital were hit: Kapotnya and Zelenograd. The first is home to a large oil refinery; the second houses several strategic facilities linked to Russia’s defense industry. In both districts, drones also struck residential buildings. According to official figures, no one was killed in either Kapotnya or Zelenograd, but the strikes left serious damage and badly frightened locals. Correspondents from the independent journalism cooperative Bereg visited Zelenograd and Kapotnya and reported on what the areas look like in the aftermath of the largest Ukrainian drone attack since the start of the full-scale war. With the outlet’s permission, Meduza is publishing the report in full.

Warning: this article contains offensive language.

‘When are they finally going to stop?!’

Natalia, a 57-year-old local who gets her news from national television, first heard about the drone strikes on Zelenograd on the night of May 17 from a Bereg correspondent. Russian state propagandists barely covered the largest drone attack on Moscow since the start of the war.

“I kept wondering, what’s all that rumbling?!” Natalia recalls waking up at three in the morning to loud sounds from outside. “When are they finally going to stop?!”

By “they,” she meant the Ukrainian military. Natalia believes Ukraine started the conflict with Russia and that the Kremlin had “no other choice” but to launch the full-scale invasion.

Local Zelenograd media and Telegram channels were also largely silent about the strikes at first, deleting comments from alarmed residents as quickly as they appeared. Journalists and community administrators said they were following a directive from Moscow’s anti-terrorism commission. On May 12, the commission banned the dissemination of information about drone attacks and their aftermath until the Defense Ministry or the Moscow mayor’s office published official data.

“If you’re willing to pay us a fine of up to 200,000 rubles, we’ll write something more specific,” one local Telegram channel quipped in response to a subscriber’s comment.

Discussion of the strikes moved into building- and neighborhood-group chats. On the night of the attack, neighbors shared emotional messages and asked for safety tips. “Should we be sitting in the bathtub yet? Feels uneasy lying in bed by the window,” one resident wrote. “I put my youngest in the hallway,” wrote another. “We’re sitting on the stairwell,” said a third. From the messages, it appears some people sheltered in entryways during the explosions, along with their pets.

Zelenograd has been struck by drones on multiple occasions — the Moscow district draws Ukrainian interest because it is home to more than a dozen defense enterprises. Some of them were attacked twice by the Ukrainian military in May 2026 alone: the Angstrem plant, which produces microchips and semiconductor devices, and the Elma technopark in an adjacent building, whose tenants also manufacture products in the field of micro- and radio electronics.

Drones also struck two residential buildings. One of them — a 14-story building constructed in the late 2000s to house residents relocated from five-story Khrushchev-era apartment blocks — stands at the very center of Zelenograd.

‘Are there even any bomb shelters around here?’

A day after the strike, emergency crews are still at work: several cherry pickers stand outside the building. Workers in hard hats collect the remaining debris and take measurements in preparation to replace windows blown out by the blast wave.

The worst damage was at the corner of the first floor, where a Papa John’s once operated; the only sign the franchise was ever here is a few small fragments of its signature green siding. The windows have been boarded over with compressed wood-chip panels. Two cars are parked near the building: one with a windshield cracked like a spider’s web, the other with no front glass at all, a sheet of plastic wrap stretched across the opening instead.

On the street side of the damaged building, metal barriers have been set up with red-and-white warning tape and a sign reading, “No entry.” Workers in hard hats and men carrying badges and documents move briskly around them.

Pedestrians on the sidewalk slow their pace; cyclists brake — almost everyone wants to get a look at the aftermath of the attack.

“Not bad — look, some windows are still intact!” a man of about 40 says to his companion in surprise.

Drawing level with the most heavily damaged section of the facade, a blonde woman in a blue dress glances around, pulls out her smartphone, films the emergency crews at work, and slips the phone back into her bag. A schoolgirl on a scooter walks beside her — apparently her daughter. She also takes out her phone and points the camera at the building.

“Sweetie, you can’t film here. Let’s go!” the blonde woman says. The girl lowers her phone, looking puzzled.

Several other buildings in the area also have blown-out windows: the facade of a nearby Perekrestok supermarket is wrapped in red-and-white tape, and a crew is at work outside another residential building across the street. The lawn along the road is almost completely scorched; on several trees and shrubs, branches hang with leaves dried dark green by the blast.

“We just need to make sure a drone doesn’t hit the 16th district of Zelenograd,” an elderly man in a cap says, leaning on his bicycle and addressing a young man sitting on a bench whose hands and neck are almost completely covered in tattoos.

“We need it so they don’t hit anywhere — there are people everywhere,” the young man says.

The man in the cap takes out his smartphone and begins reading war-related news aloud. He is unhappy: the Telegram channel he follows is reporting on strikes in Mytishchi, Krasnogorsk, Khimki, and Istra but makes no mention of the hits on Zelenograd. The channel’s author reports that “the enemy is planning another mass drone launch on Moscow.”

“The Ukes want to fire rockets at us too, then we’ll really be screwed!” he says, looking up from his phone. “Are there even any bomb shelters around here?”

“There’s one in the 14th district, I think,” his tattooed companion replies.

“Right, the 14th. By the time you drag yourself over there…”

On the prospect of Ukrainian long-range missile strikes deep into Russian territory, the man in the cap invokes a statement Donald Trump made in the fall of 2025. At the time, the U.S. president said he was open to supplying Ukraine with Tomahawk missiles if Russia continued to drag out the war.

“Unlike Putin, Trump keeps his word!” the Zelenograd man says. “Putin just bullshits about his ‘Sarmats’ and ‘Oreshniks.’”

Three weeks after his Tomahawk statement, the U.S. leader abruptly told reporters that he had decided not to supply Ukraine with those missiles after all.

The man in the cap apparently does not know this. He continues to curse Putin and Ukraine, and along with them, the countries of Europe and China.

“Only four countries are helping us — why can’t we ask China to fuck Ukraine up too?” the Zelenograd man wonders. “We’re surrounded by the fucking Baltics. The Baltics are the size of a chicken egg. German lapdogs!”

‘Mr. Putin said the air defense forces performed satisfactorily!’

The second apartment building struck by a Ukrainian drone draws less attention from passersby. Located in a district far from the center, it was hit on the side of the facade that’s barely visible from the road.

The damage here, however, is far more severe. Emergency crews had to bring not only lifts but also erect eight-story scaffolding. Wrapped in dark green netting, through which workers can be seen throwing down broken pieces of facade insulation, the structure is surrounded by metal barriers on almost all sides.

The noise is intense: power tools run almost without pause. That does not deter onlookers: women with children, couples, the elderly, and schoolchildren of various ages gather around the barriers. Some claim benches and swings that offer the best view of the damage and watch the emergency crews work as if it were a show.

By mid-afternoon, as schools get out, the number of children grows noticeably. Groups of teenagers with snacks and two-liter bottles of lemonade settle on the grass.

“That’s my building!” one boy shouts proudly to his friends, trying to be heard over the construction equipment and the arguing workers.

On a bench a little farther away, two women in their fifties discuss what to do if the strikes happen again.

“Do you put any protective film on your windows?”

“What for?”

“Well, because of these… planes! Or whatever they are?”

“You should, you really should — the danger isn’t going away.”

Blast film would do little good in the event of a direct drone hit. But if a drone strikes a nearby building and the blast wave reaches the apartment, the film would keep the broken glass in the frame, preventing shards from flying across the room.

“Can you imagine, the blast was so powerful that I heard it all the way in the 9th district,” a thin gray-haired woman says.

“We had a pretty loud blast in the 17th, too,” a heavyset man in a light T-shirt nods.

“I could even hear them flying. Like a lot of motorcycles going past.”

The Zelenograd residents compare notes on how they managed during the attack. One woman says her first instinct was to gather her most important documents, put them in a bag, and hang it on the front door handle. Another says she started googling how to insure her apartment.

“And Mr. Putin said yesterday that the air defense forces performed satisfactorily!” the heavyset man says with a smirk. “I nearly fainted!”

“Maybe Putin isn’t even being told about this? It’s a local incident, so maybe he just doesn’t know.”

”‘Satisfactorily’ means a passing grade,” the man continues. “What passing grade are we talking about here?”

The residents agree that what they see as poor air defense performance is one of the reasons Muscovites were banned from sharing information about the strikes under threat of a fine. But they have mixed feelings about the ban itself.

“Sure, you forwarded something to a friend, but the enemy isn’t sleeping either,” one participant in the conversation says, defending the authorities.

“So what? You think the enemy doesn’t already know everything?”

Asked who bears responsibility for drones now hitting residential buildings in their city, the Zelenograd residents have no clear answer. “Ukraine says we’re dragging out the war, and we say they’re dragging it out,” the gray-haired woman says. “I don’t know, but I don’t trust anyone. Our lives have become completely unbearable. We are tired of the war.”

‘If the refinery had blown, half of Kapotnya would have been wiped out’

In Kapotnya in southeastern Moscow, Ukrainian drones targeted a Gazprom-owned oil refinery. Built apart from residential areas in 1938, it has since been surrounded by apartment buildings.

“I mean, this is Moscow — how can this be happening?!” exclaims a 22-year-old man from Rostov who moved to the capital a few months ago.

He is long accustomed to shelling: in his hometown, it happens often. He spent the night in Maryino, at a friend’s place. The group had been drinking late into the night and was out on the balcony to watch the sunrise around four in the morning, just as the Ukrainian drones began arriving in the city.

“Honestly, I was already asleep,” the man told Bereg, “but my friends were drinking all night. They went out three times to buy more. They heard this insane boom — or what do they call it, a ‘pop’?”

The refinery is home to enormous concrete buildings amid an endless tangle of pipes and metal structures, including one resembling a shopping center with a Gazprom sign. Next to it is a security checkpoint, through which tired men with sports bags emerge onto the street. Nearby is a half-empty parking lot scattered with broken glass — some pieces very small, others whole window panes, shattered.

A short distance from the entrance gate is a small green area with benches and canopies. Three men in shorts, house slippers, and T-shirts walk past. Two of them begin searching for something in the bars of a fence.

“Hey, what happened to your lip?” one of the group asks Bereg’s correspondent.

“It’s just a ring — a piercing.”

“Oh, I thought a drone got you.”

But when asked about the overnight attack, all three turn pale and resume their search without saying a word.

The damage from the strikes in Kapotnya would have been far more severe if the drones had hit the plant’s petroleum waste facilities. But not a single refinery building was damaged — only the security checkpoint, where, according to Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, 12 workers were injured.

At a bus stop near the refinery, a woman with two heavy bags waits for a bus. She gazes pensively toward the plant and says, “Yes, there was a bang, but farther away. If that refinery had blown, half of Kapotnya would have been wiped out.”