Ukrainian Drone Strikes Deep in Russia Grow Public Alarm
Kassie Corelli
Executive Summary:
On April 25, a Ukrainian drone struck Yekaterinburg—a city far from the front and the capital of the Urals—for the first time, damaging a high-rise apartment building. This event convinced even some staunch supporters of the war that no “rear area” remains in Russia.
Sociological studies show growing anxiety in Russian society and lower regard for the authorities. Even the Kremlin-aligned All-Russian Public Opinion Research center (VTsIOM) found that 25 percent of Russians felt alarmed in April, a 2 percent increase from January.
Russia’s inability to achieve its military objectives, economic problems, and the threat of Ukrainian drones have led Russian support for peace negotiations to grow from 35 percent in February 2025 to 59 percent this February. Analysis of chats in Russian border towns shows blame shifting away from Ukrainians and toward Russian officials.
Ukrainian drones attacked Yekaterinburg, a city located deep inside Russia, for the first time on April 25. The attack damaged a high-rise apartment building (DW Russkaya Sluzhba, April 25). From the start of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the Kremlin framed the war as a “special operation,” a geographically limited endeavor that the majority of Russians could ignore while continuing normal life (Kommersant, May 26, 2023). Now, however, it is virtually impossible for the average person to distance themselves from Putin’s war against Ukraine as armed conflict increasingly spills onto Russian territory.
Even stalwart supporters of Russia’s war against Ukraine admit that “there is no longer a rear area,” the “Special Military Operation” did not achieve its goals, and huge numbers of Russians have died (YouTube/@Borovskih, April 28). At the end of March, loyalist military expert Rustem Klupov said that the number of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) striking Russia increased 250 percent since the beginning of the year (Biznes Online, March 28).
Independent journalists analyzed regional Telegram channels for the first 3.5 months of this year and found about 2,000 reports of UAV overflights during this period. The highest volume of reports regarding the threat of drone attacks came from channels in the Tula, Bryansk, Kursk, and Voronezh oblasts. Moscow-based channels regularly reported drones flying toward the capital. According to official reports, Moscow and more than twenty regions from southern Russia to the Urals suffered UAV attacks in 2026 (Novaya Gazeta, April 27). The Bryansk oblast’s Telegram channel—which boasts over 40,000 subscribers—shows an average of ten missile and bomb attack reports per day (Telegram/@lpr1_Bryansk_alarm, accessed May 6).
More drone attacks inside Russia during the first months of 2026 correlate with increased Russian anxiety levels. Even the All-Russian Public Opinion Research center (VTsIOM), an organization loyal to the authorities, is tracking this trend, finding that 25 percent of Russians felt anxiety/alarm (тревожных, trevozhnikh) in April, a 2 percent increase from January (VTsIOM Novosti, April 28). Alcoholism and alcoholic psychosis, a sign of worsening social problems and potentially an indirect indicator of anxiety, increased by 30 percent in 2025 compared to 2024 (Vazhnie Istorii, April 16). As in Ukrainian regions near the front lines, inhabitants of Russian border regions experience constant stress and sometimes go months without heat and hot water (Nfront, February 17).
Russia’s inability to achieve its military objectives, economic problems, and the threat of Ukrainian drones has led Russian support for peace negotiations to grow from 35 percent in February 2025 to 59 percent this February (Re: Russia, April 20). Nevertheless, it is hard to guess where popular dissatisfaction will be most directed. It could focus on Ukraine as the immediate source of danger, the Kremlin as the initiator of the war, or regional officials and security forces incapable of ensuring Russians’ security. The target of public blame is difficult to discern from sociological surveys because of respondents’ fear of repression.
Political scientist Abbas Gallyamov suggests that attacks on Russian cities will lead to more anti-war sentiment. According to Gallyamov, Russian society is rapidly distancing itself from the government, unwilling to be associated with its failures. After the end of the war, however, the Kremlin may channel this dissatisfaction against big business, furthering the nationalization of Russia’s economy and the suppression of those who favor the market path to national development (Dialog.ua, April 23). Attempts to find internal enemies in the financial–economic sector have gone on throughout the war (YouTube/@ЭМПАТИЯМАНУЧИ-ж7ч@ЧерныйАрхив-п8д, March 20). The Kremlin is energetically trying to convince Russians that problems in the economy and at the front are exclusively the fault of Ukraine, the “collective West,” and certain “traitors in power,” but never Putin. In some ways, this tactic is successful, partly due to propaganda and partly due to the natural psychological reactions of people in an extreme situation. Without the ability to influence the actions of the Kremlin, Russians under fire channel their anger toward the immediate threat—Ukraine, or regional officials.
As early as 2014, a similar “Stockholm Syndrome” occurred among Donbas residents in reaction to Russian aggression. Ukrainian expert Igor Todorov noted at the time that the population of the occupied territories, lacking the ability to leave, accommodated themselves to the new reality (Den’, October 29, 2014). Journalists also noted that a “logic of war” is at work in Donbas, where residents resolve to avenge the fallen, and no longer give a thought to the true causes of the conflict (Nezavisimaya Gazeta, January 27, 2015). In Russia, uncritically blaming Ukraine for drone strikes is common because residents have accepted the war as a natural phenomenon and learned not to think about the reason for it (Re-Russia.net, March 13, 2023). According to independent journalists, however, the basic reaction of Russians in border regions is not even hatred for Ukrainians, but rather banal. Journalists from “Novaya Gazeta” cite statements from residents of Novorossiysk and small towns in the Leningrad oblast, who claim to watch them with interest from their balconies (Novaya Gazeta, April 27).
Even so, Russian dissatisfaction with the actions of the authorities is growing. Rhetoric is shifting in border towns’ Telegram chats, including in Rylsk, Sudzha, and Lgov. While in 2024–2025, chat participants actively re-posted anti-Ukrainian reports, using the derogatory term “khokhly” for Ukrainians, this term is not used in 2026 (Telegram/@rylskchat, November 8, 2025). Instead, users’ anger is directed at the Ministry of Defense, which utilizes civilian aircraft for military purposes, thereby turning passengers into “human shields” (Telegram/@rylskchat, April 26). For now, participants in such chat groups do not yet dare to criticize the Kremlin directly. The trend, however, is moving precisely in that direction.
This article was originally published in Eurasia Daily Monitor.