“Now it’s flying here too”: how drone attacks in the Chelyabinsk region are changing Russians’ attitudes towards war

18+ This material (information) was produced, distributed and (or) sent by a foreign agent Media project “New Tab” or concerns the activities of a foreign agent Media project “New Tab” Author Maria Belen May 14, 2026 diaries read: 6 min.

Since May, Chelyabinsk has regularly reported the threat of unmanned and sometimes missile attacks. This is rare for our region: meteorites have previously reached the Urals, but not drones. And it is impossible not to notice how, against the backdrop of text messages about possible UAV attacks, the mood changes even among those people who seemed to support the government and never thought about leaving Russia.

In the “ Diaries ” section we publish author’s columns in which journalists share their own experiences. These are personal stories in which the nerve of time is felt. The time in which we all live now.

“There is a missile danger in the Chelyabinsk region,” my friend Anton anxiously reads out a text message from the Ministry of Emergency Situations while we are grilling kebabs.

“Rocket danger clear,” he voices again. — Unmanned danger in the Chelyabinsk region, damn it!

- Yes, Kamon, what's the difference? Still, it’s not felt here like in the border regions,” I say. “We don’t even hear any explosions or arrivals.” And what will these text messages change in your life?

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For the first time during the war, explosions occurred in our region in October 2025. Then the buildings in the Leninsky district of Chelyabinsk and Kopeysk literally shook, a crack appeared in the ceiling of my house, and the media immediately began writing about the drone attack. It turned out that it was an explosion at the Plastmass plant - the enterprise was rebuilt for the defense industry during the war. Governor Alexei Teksler then assured that the emergency was not related to drones; journalists were forbidden to write about this version, but many residents did not believe what was said.

The fact that a UAV attack was stopped in the region was first officially reported on the night of April 25, 2026. There were no casualties or destruction. In May, SMS messages about attacks began to arrive regularly. On the night of May 4-5, a missile threat was announced, but so far everything is limited to flight delays, as well as interruptions in mobile communications and the Internet.

The liberal part of our company is not at all surprised by what is happening. We react to alarming text messages approximately as in the meme : “Unmanned danger” - “Cancel, I’ll eat kebab” - “Cancel unmanned danger.”

“The war itself causes more negativity for me than these arrivals,” an anti-war friend tells me. — The very rule “don’t bomb, lest you be bombed” is now being implemented. In general, everything seems somehow natural. What bothers me more is that even the attacks in the Urals are not encouraging the authorities to end this war.

For those who were already worried about this war, I don’t see any special changes in my environment. We will probably start to worry seriously only when drones start flying into our apartments, because since 2022 we have already realized the tragedy of the war and understand how unsafe it is for ourselves.

But Anton does not consider himself a liberal. For the first time in four years, he began to criticize the authorities and think about emigrating. Previously, I heard from him that “the crests themselves are to blame for this war” and that “Putin did everything right.” Anton is one of those people who has a case with a double-headed eagle on his smartphone, and the Russian tricolor sewn on his jacket. Some of his close friends died in the war.

But now he does not understand why it is easier for him to learn about UAV attacks in the Urals from Ukrainian channels than from the Russian authorities; why in his beloved China censorship restrictions are smoothed out, in his opinion, by a fairly stable economic life for citizens, while in Russia censorship is accompanied by instability; why now, when the attacks have already reached the Urals, none of the officials can have a humane conversation with the Russians and at least stop complicating their lives with all sorts of restrictions and new repressive laws. Now Anton begins to envy those who left and legalized, for example, in Germany, and regrets that he does not have such an opportunity.

- What has changed? — I ask another friend, who at first condemned those who left, and now, after the attacks, she herself is thinking about emigrating.

— Yes, the only advantage of Chelyabinsk has always been that it is safe here. And now it’s flying here too! - she answers.

Damn ping-pong How fear and indifference are born when you live in a front-line city

I can’t say that most of the Chelyabinsk residents I know started to panic or have increased anxiety. In the Urals, in general, people are fatalists.

“I was driving with a woman here, all these SMS scared her, she said: “I can’t sleep at night, I have panic attacks.” Honestly, I’ve been having panic attacks for a long time already,” a taxi driver with whom I was once driving through a region of Chelyabinsk, built to capacity with defense factories, told me. — Are you afraid of drones? Well, what's the point of being afraid... These warnings seem to help you!

He begins to remember various emergency situations in the Chelyabinsk region:

— Our car with bromine exploded , so no one was warned; the meteorite fell - at first no one could explain what happened; there was an explosion at the [Plastmass] plant - that’s how many people died, and we still don’t fully know what was there. In general, our life here is such that we are simply accustomed to dealing with the consequences, and not preventing threats. The only thing that really upsets us now is that our government is behaving this way.

People don’t understand why authorities are sometimes more concerned about tracking who photographed what and where they posted it during an attack than about the safety of residents. Moreover, everything that is done supposedly for the safety of citizens often does not help.

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When the Internet is once again jammed in the Chelyabinsk region amid the threat of attacks, both VKontakte and Zoom stop opening for me, but Telegram and Instagram, blocked in Russia, work perfectly (the activities of the company Meta, which owns Instagram, are prohibited in Russia) . Several times, both me and my friends had their work disrupted because of this: we could not get on the phone with the employer or the customer.

- What is my reaction? Such that you don’t want anything anymore, you’re already all stressed,” one of my most optimistic friends tells me. — Despite the fact that I am a patriot of Russia, I have always said that our country is the best and I will not leave here anywhere, especially since all this will not reach the Urals.

She believes that since drones fly to the Chelyabinsk region, it means they are launched from Russia, and she is afraid that anything could happen.

“And at this moment there is nothing to console yourself with, it is impossible to focus on something else - you have all these blockages and restrictions here.” Now it’s hard to work, we live in the area surrounded by military personnel ( defense factories - Ed. ). You seem to smile, everything seems to be fine, you don’t think about the war, but you have a hop - unmanned danger. You still sit and tense internally. You forget about it, but you are reminded every time that you cannot influence any threats here. And the thoughts of leaving the country before the end of hostilities are now becoming more and more overwhelming every day.

Before May 9, I thought that the alarms in Chelyabinsk also sounded an important sense of self for local residents: even during World War II, the city was not bombed. Many Chelyabinsk residents were already embarrassed that “SVO” lasted longer than the Great Patriotic War. Now another nuance has been added.