Moscow oil refinery attack brings Russia’s war with Ukraine closer to home

There are moments when life in Moscow is completely normal. Thursday morning was not one of them.

An oil refinery in the south-east of the city was hit during a Ukrainian drone strike; Even from afar the sight was surreal.

Heavy smoke rising from where the facility was located darkened the sky. It hung over the Moscow skyline like a huge black shroud.

As spectacular and eye-catching as this was, so was the reaction of people near the refinery.

Paying little attention to the large clouds of smoke, a fisherman was sitting on the edge of a pond, staring at the water as he continued fishing.

Children were having fun on the swings in the playground opposite.

Shoppers were walking to and from the supermarket as if it were just another Thursday.

It was then that I realized that my understanding of what was and was not normal in Moscow needed to be updated.

For a long time, the war against Ukraine seemed very distant to people in Russia’s capital. Many claimed that this did not happen at all, but the closer the front line gets to the city, the more difficult it becomes to do this.

Over the past year and a half, Muscovites have woken up to news that army generals in Moscow had been assassinated and drones were targeting the capital.

In a sense, abnormal is already the new normal.

Thursday’s attack was one of the largest air strikes on the Moscow region since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

There was also damage to the oil refinery, shopping malls and residential buildings. According to the governor of the Moscow region, an eight-year-old girl died in a fire caused by one of the drone strikes.

“I’m not very surprised by what happened,” says Slava, who lives in an apartment building opposite the oil refinery. “But I didn’t expect such a big attack.”

“I heard explosions and saw a lot of smoke. This is the kind of thing you normally see in movies. I saw it from my apartment window.”

But another resident, Nadezhda, sees nothing normal in what is happening.

“It took us four years to win World War II, even though our soldiers had very little food and water,” he said.

“We have all the resources we need today. But this war continues. I’m shocked.”

How do Russian officials react to people like Nadezhda, Russians trying to understand why the Kremlin’s so-called “special military operation” is taking so long and how the war came to their city?

Russian officials constantly accuse the West of prolonging the war in Ukraine, accusing European leaders and NATO of supporting Kiev.

But on Thursday, President Vladimir Putin said nothing about the drone attack. There was little mention of this in news bulletins on Russian television channels.

When Russian newspapers covered this story the next day, I noticed a common thread in their coverage: perhaps a coordinated message aimed at domestic audiences.

It can be summarized as follows: “No matter how bad it is for us, Ukraine suffers more”.

“Our attacks cause much more damage to Ukraine than Ukraine does to us,” said the ultra-pro-Kremlin Komsomolskaya Pravda.

“Our attacks to disarm Ukraine are much more powerful and effective than Ukrainian attacks,” wrote the tabloid Moskovsky Komsomolets.

The narrative in the government newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta was almost the same: “Our attacks on defense organizations working for the Ukrainian army are, unfortunately, much stronger than what the Russians have had to deal with.”

Business newspaper Kommersant commented, “Our attacks on Ukraine’s infrastructure linked to the military-industrial complex are much more effective and produce more results.”

When the Kremlin finally reacted, it offered a similar message.

“You should look at more images from various cities in Ukraine,” Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

“The images showing the results of the attacks carried out by our armed forces are impressive. These attacks will continue.”

There is no sign that Ukraine’s drone attacks on Russian cities are giving Putin pause. From his recent speeches and statements, it appears that the Kremlin leader is determined to continue Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, confident that his country will prevail in this war of attrition.

But there are signs that Ukraine’s long-term attacks, particularly on Russian oil facilities, are increasing the pressure on the Russian economy. Gas shortages and rationing have been reported in some parts of the country, and prices are rising at the pumps.

In this situation that has become the new normal, Moscow expects more drone attacks.

Moskovsky Komsomolets predicted that “Ukraine’s attack on the Moscow region on June 18 will neither be the last attack nor one of the last.”

“There’s nothing we can do about it,” a woman looking at clouds of smoke told me last Thursday.

“Our government must decide what to do. All we can do is watch.”