RAMENSKOYE, Russia: As a drone smashed into the side of her apartment block early on Tuesday, Russia’s full-scale offensive on Ukraine literally came home to Svetlana in a suburb southeast of Moscow.
Like for most Russians, Moscow’s three-year military campaign had until then felt distant — mostly constrained to television screens.
Despite militaristic propaganda and a mass recruitment of soldiers, authorities have tried to keep society at arm’s length from the conflict’s death and destruction — especially in and around the capital.
“You understand that it is war, but you don’t realize it properly,” Svetlana, wearing a winter coat with a fur collar, said. “But now, yes, it has come.”
In her town of Ramenskoye, around 40 kilometers (25 miles) southeast of central Moscow, police had cordoned off an area where a drone hit.
The attack shattered the sense of comfort that Svetlana — a supporter of the Kremlin’s offensive — had.
“Yes, we were weaving camouflage nets, collecting humanitarian aid, accompanying fighters there, but we still didn’t realize it. Now it has come,” Svetlana said.
“I’m scared for the children,” said Andrei, an electrician who lives on the 12th floor of a building that was hit.
He was sweeping up broken glass from his car, which was hit by falling shrapnel after the drone crashed into the 18th-22nd floors.
“My six-year-old daughter was sleeping with me, she woke up crying from the noise,” he told AFP.
Kyiv said it wants the attack — which involved more than 300 drones — to convince Russian President Vladimir Putin to agree to an aerial ceasefire.
The Kremlin has previously ruled that out.
Ukraine says the strikes are just a taste of what Russia has subjected its citizens to over the last three years, with Moscow having fired near daily bomb, missile and drone attacks across the country.
“There is not even any thought that tonight will be peaceful. It’s scary,” said Olga, a 21-year old who works in IT and lives in the adjacent building to one hit.
She ran out to the street after being woken at 5 am (0200 GMT) by the rumbling.
“People just have fear in their eyes,” she told AFP, the ground around her covered with shrapnel.
Unlike in Ukraine — where air alerts ring out practically every night in almost every city — there was no such warning of an incoming attack in the Russian capital or its suburbs.
“We don’t understand what to do in such situations,” said Olga.
“The news says that more and more drones are being shot down. It’s scary to even go to sleep after such a thing,” she added. “It could have been us.”
The idea of peace — previously seen as within reach amid US President Donald Trump’s rapprochement with Moscow — now felt far away in Ramenskoye.
“In my opinion, this attack won’t be the last,” said retiree Sergei, criticizing Ukraine’s “bloodthirsty” European backers who were supplying it with arms.
For 75-year-old Yulia, who lives next to the building that was hit, there was just frustration.
“My heart is bad. I don’t believe there will be peace,” she told AFP.
“Why can’t they agree? Why not? What are they thinking about?,” she said, through tears. “It’s terrible.”
‘War has come’: Russians shaken by Ukrainian drone barrage
https://arab.news/45zem
‘War has come’: Russians shaken by Ukrainian drone barrage
- Like for most Russians, Moscow’s three-year military campaign had until then felt distant — mostly constrained to television screens
- The attack shattered the sense of comfort that Svetlana — a supporter of the Kremlin’s offensive — had
Mass shooting at a South African bar leaves 11 dead, including 3 children
- Another 14 people were wounded and taken to the hospital
- The children killed were a 3-year-old boy, a 12-year-old boy and a 16-year-old girl
CAPE TOWN: A mass shooting carried out Saturday by multiple suspects in an unlicensed bar near the South African capital left at least 11 people dead, police said. The victims included three children aged 3, 12 and 16.
Another 14 people were wounded and taken to the hospital, according to a statement from the South African Police Services. Police didn’t give details on the ages of those who were injured or their conditions.
The shooting happened at a bar inside a hostel in the Saulsville township west of the administrative capital of Pretoria in the early hours of Saturday. Ten of the victims died at the scene and the 11th died at the hospital, police said.
The children killed were a 3-year-old boy, a 12-year-old boy and a 16-year-old girl. Police said they were searching for three male suspects.
“We are told that at least three unknown gunmen entered this hostel where a group of people were drinking and they started randomly shooting,” police spokesperson Brig. Athlenda Mathe told national broadcaster SABC. She said the motive for the killings was not clear. The shootings happened at around 4.15 a.m., she said, but police were only alerted at 6 a.m.
South Africa has one of the highest homicide rates in the world and recorded more than 26,000 homicides in 2024 — an average of more than 70 a day. Firearms are by far the leading cause of death in homicides.
The country of 62 million people has relatively strict gun ownership laws, but many killings are committed with illegal guns, authorities say.
There have been several mass shootings at bars — sometimes called shebeens or taverns in South Africa — in recent years, including one that killed 16 people in the Johannesburg township of Soweto in 2022. On the same day, four people were killed in a mass shooting at a bar in another province.
Mathe said that mass shootings at unlicensed bars were becoming a serious problem and police had shut down more than 11,000 illegal taverns between April and September this year and arrested more than 18,000 people for involvement in illegal liquor sales.
Recent mass killings in South Africa have not been confined to bars, however. Police said 18 people were killed, 15 of them women, in mass shootings minutes apart at two houses on the same road in a rural part of Eastern Cape province in September last year.
Seven men were arrested for those shootings and face multiple charges of murder, while police recovered three AK-style assault rifles they believe were used in the shootings.
