After the attacks overnight on July 18, Russian officials and state-loyal media disclosed very few details about the strikes on Wildberries warehouses and published no footage of the fires. This was noted by TV Rain and Agentstvo.
Moscow Region Governor Andrey Vorobyov devoted two posts to the events. One of them included a photograph, but it showed not the burning Wildberries logistics center, but a kindergarten in Elektrostal damaged by drone debris.
Tambov Region head Yevgeny Pervyshov wrote about the attack three times. Photographs appeared only in a post about his visit to the hospital where the injured had been taken. At the same time, the websites and social media accounts of the regional Emergency Ministry offices contained no reports about the attacks and fires at the warehouses themselves.
The main regional media outlets also did not publish footage from the strike sites. Federal television channels did not include the attacks among the day’s main stories and showed no images of the fires in Elektrostal and Kotovsk.
NTV and Rossiya 1 spent about 40 seconds each on their first reports about the strikes, merely repeating the governors’ statements. Channel One covered the attack for about two minutes, likewise without footage from the scene. Later, Rossiya 1 aired a report from a Tambov hospital lasting about two and a half minutes, featuring comments from one of the injured, doctors, and Health Ministry representatives.
Photographs of the fires were also absent from the security-linked Telegram channels Baza, Mash, and Shot. Reports by Vedomosti, Lenta.ru, and Gazeta.Ru were also published without illustrations. Kommersant used the kindergarten photo from Vorobyov’s post.
The Telegram channel Ostorozhno, Novosti said the lack of images was due to fears connected with a ban on publishing the aftermath of attacks, except for officially approved statements. The channel later also posted the kindergarten photograph previously published by the Moscow Region governor.