A Ukrainian drone struck an apartment building in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg, Sverdlovsk Region governor Denis Pasler announced earlier today. He said at least six people sought medical treatment for mild smoke inhalation, and one was hospitalized.
Yekaterinburg lies nearly 2,000 kilometers (over 1,200 miles) from the front line and had not previously recorded a drone strike.
According to local media reports, the building in question is the Trinity residential complex on Khokhryakova Street in the city center. Published footage indicates the drone hit the upper part of the high-rise, around the 25th to 30th floors. Residents were evacuated, with some sent to temporary accommodation centers. Many ran out of the building with little more than their documents.
“Everyone is under stress. They are not saying anything yet. Everyone was sent to a school. They gave everyone food and water. We really hope to get back home. We have no belongings with us. We only had time to take our passports. We actually thought it was an earthquake. You watch the news and think this is happening somewhere else and will never affect us. If someone had told me yesterday that this would happen to our residential complex, I would not have believed it,” one resident told local outlet E1.
Residents have not yet been allowed to return to their apartments. Investigators are working at the scene.
Authorities did not warn people living in Yekaterinburg of the drone threat, local residents said. Subscribers of some mobile operators received text alerts, but only after the strike. The city’s Koltsovo Airport halted operations about 20 minutes before the drone struck.
Maxim Ivanov, a State Duma MP from the Sverdlovsk Region, urged people to stop viewing the region as a safe area far from the front line and called for an alert system to be set up to warn people of impending attacks.
“This mindset that we live ‘in the rear’ and that this does not concern us must become a thing of the past. There had been strikes on neighboring regions; now, unfortunately, the time has come to respond in Yekaterinburg as well. If anyone thinks that we remain safe because we are 2,000 kilometers away, that is no longer true in today’s situation. People must take their duties seriously, including alerts. If the warning system did not work, then it apparently has not actually been properly set up,” he said.
It is currently unknown where the drone was launched from or what exactly the target was. The independent Russian outlet Astra reported that there are no obvious military facilities near the site of the strike. Kyiv has not commented on the incident. Saturday’s attack marked the first recorded drone strike in the Sverdlovsk Region, though neighboring regions have already reported detecting or being struck with drones. Local authorities have reported strikes in the Chelyabinsk and Tyumen regions, as well as Perm Krai and the Republic of Bashkortostan.
