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The war is increasingly affecting everyday life in Russia. Air raid sirens are sounding more and more frequently. Mobile and internet outages are becoming more frequent, and households are facing higher utility bills and tax increases due to rising military spending, Bloomberg reports The publication reported that 49-year-old choreographer Olga was recently awakened by a powerful explosion. It was so strong that her apartment building shuddered and windows and furniture shook. Looking out into the street, she saw a column of thick black smoke rising from a military equipment factory that had just been hit by a missile.
The publication clarified that Olga does not live in Kyiv, Kherson, or any other Ukrainian city that has been under fire from President Vladimir Putin's forces for years. Her hometown is Kirov, Russia, located 800 km northeast of Moscow. Olga lives near the Kirov Avatek plant, which produces anti-aircraft missiles, catapults and other aviation equipment, and which Ukraine struck in July. The article notes that this missile strike is one of many that have led to a rising number of civilian casualties in Russia in recent months. They are forcing their own people to feel the consequences of Putin's war, even though he promised a quick and glorious victory.
According to a Bloomberg analysis of statements by regional authorities on their Telegram channels, people have been dying in Russia almost every week since the Ukrainian attacks intensified in mid-summer. Meanwhile, confidential data stolen from Russia's Statistics Service showed that around 400,000 of its citizens had died in fighting in Ukraine. The publication emphasized that the country had not suffered military losses of this scale since World War II. But everyday life in a growing number of Russian cities, including Moscow, can no longer be called peaceful, the article says.
As the publication notes, air raid sirens, signaling the threat of strikes or drone attacks, have become a daily occurrence for millions of residents of most regions of Central Russia. Ksenia, a 71-year-old pensioner from the city of Kolomna, located about 120 km southeast of the capital, said the sounds of war can be heard every day in the Moscow region. Every night we hear the sound of anti-aircraft guns, windows shake, car alarms go off, and dogs bark in fear. I recently saw a drone being shot down over the stadium. I was watching a movie last night and saw a fireball in the window The publication noted that Ukrainian drones and missiles can now strike
at a distance of up to 3,000 km from the border, keeping almost half of the territory of Russia, the largest country in the world, under their sights The war is penetrating deeper into Russia and becoming increasingly deadly for its civilian population, said Alex Kokcharov, an analyst at Bloomberg Economics in London. At the same time, the publication acknowledges that life in Russia remains relatively normal compared to Ukraine, where residents are forced to endure long power outages and interruptions in heating and water supply. Moscow restaurants, theaters, and exhibitions are crowded. Even in Voronezh, a city of about 1 million people and the capital of a region bordering Ukraine's Luhansk Oblast,
life continues almost uninterrupted, despite daily warnings of drone and missile strikes, the article notes. The publication claims that the Kremlin is trying to minimize the domestic political consequences of the Ukrainian strikes. State media reports on the aftermath of large-scale strikes are usually brief, and television footage is rare. Regional governors regularly call these attacks terrorist acts on Telegram, reinforcing the Kremlin's position that portrays the Ukrainian regime as a threat to ordinary Russians, the article adds. Despite his tarnished reputation at home, Putin remains popular among many Russians as a leader who restored stability after the turmoil of the 1990s
, ended the war in Chechnya, and ensured years of relative prosperity.
