{"id":1442099,"date":"2026-09-21T11:16:20","date_gmt":"2026-09-21T08:16:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/moscow-did-not-raise-alarm-during-drone-attack-for-the-sake-of-turnout-in-elections-isw\/"},"modified":"2026-09-21T11:16:20","modified_gmt":"2026-09-21T08:16:20","slug":"moscow-did-not-raise-alarm-during-drone-attack-for-the-sake-of-turnout-in-elections-isw","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/moscow-did-not-raise-alarm-during-drone-attack-for-the-sake-of-turnout-in-elections-isw\/","title":{"rendered":"Moscow did not raise alarm during drone attack for the sake of turnout in \u201celections\u201d \u2013 ISW"},"content":{"rendered":"

During the large-scale drone attack on Moscow and the Moscow region on September 20, Russian authorities did not activate air raid sirens or send SMS warnings to residents about the danger. The Institute for the Study of War suggests that this may have been related to the State Duma elections.<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is stated<\/a> in a report by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).<\/p>\n

Analysts noted that the Moscow Region authorities did not use sirens and SMS messages about air threats, although such warnings had previously been used during much smaller attacks.<\/p>\n

At the same time, mobile communications were restricted in the region during the attack, one of the measures that Russian authorities regularly use during drone strikes. However, there was no extensive official explanation for the restrictions.<\/p>\n

According to ISW, residents of the Moscow region complained about the lack of warnings on Governor Andrey Vorobyov’s Telegram channel. The ability to comment on posts on the channel was later closed.<\/p>\n

ISW estimates that the Russian authorities may have prioritized high turnout in the State Duma elections over public safety. The September 20 vote was the last day of the Russian parliamentary elections.<\/p>\n

Analysts stressed that during the attack, Ukrainian forces struck strategic oil and logistics infrastructure and there were no recorded deliberate strikes on polling stations or other electoral infrastructure.<\/p>\n

According to ISW, the strike on the night of September 20 was the largest combined strike on the Moscow region since the start of the full-scale war. The Russian mayor of Moscow, Sergei Sobyanin, claimed hundreds of drones were allegedly heading towards the capital.<\/p>\n

As a reminder, the attack hit the Moscow Oil Refinery<\/a> , which provides a significant portion of the Russian capital’s fuel needs.<\/p>\n

In addition, the General Staff and Special Operations Forces confirmed the destruction of the Moscow oil refinery<\/a> . President Volodymyr Zelensky reported that a number of Ukrainian long-range weapons were used during the operation.<\/p>\n

Also follow \u201cPryamim\u201d<\/strong> on Facebook<\/strong><\/a> , X<\/strong><\/a> , Telegram<\/strong><\/a> , and Instagram.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

During the large-scale drone attack on Moscow and the Moscow region on September 20, Russian authorities did not activate air raid sirens or send SMS warnings to residents about the danger. The Institute for the Study of War suggests that this may have been related to the State Duma elections. This is stated in a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":67,"featured_media":1441961,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[76875,76878,76871,76872,76874],"class_list":["post-1442099","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-other-news","category-society","category-news-2","category-news-feed","category-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1442099","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/67"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1442099"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1442099\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1441961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1442099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1442099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}