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Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
During the record drone attack on Moscow on 20 September, the Russian authorities deliberately did not warn residents about danger — neither with sirens nor SMS alerts. Analysts say the reason was a reluctance to depress turnout for the State Duma elections.
20 September, on the last day of voting in the State Duma elections, the Moscow region authorities did not activate air-raid sirens or send SMS warnings about the threat of attack — though they had done so earlier even during much smaller strikes. At the same time, according to analysts’ observations, authorities did resort to one of the typical countermeasures — restricting mobile communications, but without any official explanation for this step. Residents of the Moscow region complained in the governor Andrey Vorobyov’s Telegram channel about the lack of warnings — before comments in the channel were closed. According to ISW, the Russian authorities clearly placed high voter turnout above public safety — even though Ukrainian forces attacked strategic oil and logistical infrastructure, and did not target polling stations or other electoral infrastructure.
As a reminder, after the drone attack on Moscow, footage of fires at several facilities in the Russian capital circulated widely. The Ukrainian side confirmed damage to the Moscow Refinery — the plant caught fire, and this is one of the largest oil refineries in Russia. President Volodymyr Zelensky also said that FP-1, RZ-100, MICH-2000, "Palyanytsia", Vendetta, "Luty", "Bars", "Flamingo", "Sich" and Pelican were used during the operation.
Document: PDF proof of the original version of the news item "У Москві приховали атаку дронів, щоб не зривати явку на виборах, - ISW". It records the publication content at the moment of the first scan, the preservation date and the source: RBC-Ukraine.
