Under attack by Flamingo. How residents of the capital of Chuvashia are experiencing the consequences of the largest air attack on the city during the war

How residents of the capital of Chuvashia are experiencing the consequences of the largest air attack on the city during the war

On the night of May 5, the capital of Chuvashia, the city of Cheboksary, was subjected to the most powerful attack by the Ukrainian Armed Forces since the beginning of the war. According to authorities , at least one of the eight drones launched by the Armed Forces of Ukraine hit an apartment building located near the VNIIR-Progress defense plant, which, according to the Armed Forces of Ukraine , “is engaged in the production of GNSS receivers and antennas for the GLONASS, GPS and Galileo satellite systems” used in kamikaze drones of the Shahed type, as well as in cruise and ballistic missiles.

According to Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, a Ukrainian F-5 Flamingo cruise missile was used to attack the Ukrainian Armed Forces plant. The attack killed two people. According to updated data, the number of victims was 35 people, 11 of them are in hospital, three are in serious condition. Also, as a result of the attack on Cheboksary, 28 residential buildings housing more than 8 thousand people were damaged. According to the head of the region, Oleg Nikolaev, a regional emergency regime was introduced in Chuvashia, and the work of urban public transport was suspended.

“Two houses were hit by drones,” says Semyon Kochkin, founder of the independent telegram channel “Angry Chuvashia.” “As our sources say, it is no longer possible to live in these houses.” These houses are located in close proximity to the plant, and a large amount of damage is attributed to the blast wave after the Flamingo missile hit. According to our sources, the radius of the blast wave exceeded 300 meters, and windows were broken in all houses. You need to understand that VNIIR is located next to the large MTV Center shopping center, and there is dense urban development around it. There is practically no data on the victims, other than official ones: the authorities carefully control the flow of information from medical institutions and behave very secretly. It is clear that these people were at home at the time the rocket hit the plant.

Joint-stock company "VNIIR-Progress" is part of the association of enterprises "ABS Electro". The holding's enterprises produce a wide range of electrical equipment. VNIIR-Progress directly provides, among other things, the needs of the Russian army, producing antennas for the protection of Shahed drones and satellite receivers for Iskander missiles. The group of companies is controlled by Serbian politician and oligarch Nenad Popovic. He founded the ABS Electro company in 1994, today it is a large electric power holding with a staff of about 3,100 people and includes eight companies and scientific institutes in Russia, according to the website of the ABS Electro group.

Residents of the city, who faced a massive night attack for the first time, told Novaya Gazeta Europe how they survived that night:

“There was shock and horror that the UAVs hit residential buildings, dozens were injured and there were dead,” Cheboksary resident and businessman Alexey describes his impressions. “This is, of course, the most massive attack that Cheboksary has ever seen. No one could imagine that there would be such massive attacks far from the borders with Ukraine. I'm afraid that if the war continues, such attacks will become constant. I just arrived in the city that day. I ask my friends - everyone is in a state of shock. On May 7, in the morning I again heard the sound of a siren in the city.

In the satellite city of Novocheboksarsk, residents also heard explosions.

“We were sleeping as a family at night and woke up to the sound of a siren. A couple of minutes later we heard a strange, unlike anything sound that lasted about half a minute. There was an SMS alert, but, naturally, we didn’t see it until we woke up in the morning,” says Sergey from Novocheboksarsk (name changed for security reasons).

According to him, most of his friends from Novocheboksarsk reacted calmly to the explosions. Cheboksary friends react differently, but the general sentiment boils down to the phrases: “how tired of all this” and why weren’t we protected.”

“Even though we live on Solnechnoye – this is the Cheboksary microdistrict – the explosions and sirens were heard very loudly,” said the young woman Anna. “The child is two years old, he was very scared, now he doesn’t sleep well, he flinches from any noise. At night I woke up in hysterics and pointed at the windows.

“I didn’t hear the first explosion or the siren, my mother woke up from the noise, I was sleeping,” says Alexandra, a resident of the affected microdistrict: the drone hit the house next door to hers. — Then throughout the day I heard explosions (I counted 9 by ear) and sirens from time to time. People are afraid, they can no longer plan their studies and work, they are always on guard. It’s not clear about studying at the university.

Everyone is terrified. Nobody believes that all this will end and things will get better. A separate point is Internet jamming. Makes it difficult to study, work, and receive news. What is remote work like when only white lists work?

During attacks, friends and family from other regions lose contact with you and simply do not know if you are alive.

According to Semyon Kochkin, after surviving air attacks, many Cheboksary residents began to leave for their dachas or villages to wait out the difficult time, without waiting for the official weekend. At the same time, the republican authorities did not declare mourning for the dead and injured, limiting themselves to introducing a regional emergency regime.

As a result, mourning became civil: it was announced by several independent Chuvash public pages on Telegram. Residents of Chuvashia also join in the mourning on social networks, using black avatars.

Many people write about the shock they experienced: after a night attack, people react nervously to loud traffic sounds and feel fear from any sudden noise.

“Am I the only one who can hear sirens everywhere?” - writes a resident of Cheboksary in Chuvash Chat.

“The motorcycle revs up and my heart sank,” writes another chat participant.

“Even the sound of a train scares me,” another woman echoes.

— The situation in the city is difficult, people are in shock. All this time it seemed to them that the war was far away, and even when there were arrivals, people did not experience this. The arrival of the rocket became a moment of realization for the residents of Cheboksary: ​​this is a real war,” notes Semyon Kochkin.

In the Cheb media chat , Cheboksary residents are wondering why the Internet was turned off in the city.

“It’s still unclear why they turned it off if it didn’t help, but only made it more difficult to study, communicate and inform?” — writes one of the users.

“The authorities published some messages only in the MAX messenger,” says Semyon Kochkin. — [Head of the Republic Oleg] Nikolaev wrote a detailed post on Telegram only 16 hours after the first attack and at first kept silent about the dead. The mayor of the city, Trofimov, also published posts with a delay, first posting information in MAX. They literally considered that coverage in the national messenger was more important than prompt notification of the population in times of danger. They couldn’t even immediately make a decision to transfer children to distance learning until the end of the May holidays. As a result, we ourselves began to write about the need for distance learning and early holidays for workers. It is obvious that people have experienced extreme stress and are in shock. It is unclear why the authorities are trying to the last to pretend that everything is going according to plan.

Most of the interlocutors of New Europe also note the weak work of local authorities with the city population.

“The only correct decision by the authorities is to help the victims. But against the background of the general silence on federal and local channels, the behavior of the authorities as a whole looks disgusting. Local authorities, fearing for their own ass, are afraid to say too much. Compared to the suspended governor of Belgorod, they generally look like puppets,” says Cheboksary resident Sergei.

— Plus to the authorities for payments to the relatives of the victims and assistance with the repair of apartments damaged by shelling. - says Alexey. “But the fact that mourning was not declared, that classes in educational institutions continued, all this raises questions.

At such a time, it is better for people not to leave their homes: the people are already intimidated by the consequences of the attack on the city. Bomb shelters are not available everywhere, and the risk of a second strike remains high.

“I look at all this destruction after yesterday’s attack, and I have no questions either for our government or for Ukraine,” says Vladimir, a resident of Cheboksary. — Everything was logical, natural and understandable back on February 24, 2022: if you hit the enemy, be prepared to receive an answer. The war must end as soon as possible - if not for the sake of peace, then at least for the sake of our own region.