After one of the largest Ukrainian drone attacks on Moscow, Russia’s federal television channels largely avoided detailed coverage of the events. In their morning news programs, Channel One, Rossiya 1, and NTV did not place the story in the opening headlines, and none aired a separate report on the strike.
Instead, anchors briefly repeated official statements from Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin and Moscow Region Governor Andrey Vorobyov. Channel One also showed photographs of the aftermath that Vorobyov had posted on social media. In later daytime broadcasts, NTV and Channel One did not mention the attack at all, while Rossiya 1 again limited itself to references to Sobyanin’s and Vorobyov’s statements, including figures on the number of injured.
Reaction from pro-Kremlin commentators
The most visible response from pro-government figures was a demand for harsh punishment for people who filmed and published videos of the strikes and their consequences. In his morning broadcast, Vladimir Solovyov said such people should be publicly imprisoned. Solovyov Live host Armen Gasparyan proposed identifying the authors of the videos through facial recognition, arresting them, and interrogating them.
VGTRK deputy director general Andrey Medvedev wrote that footage of strikes on targets in Moscow was being spread across the Ukrainian segment of the internet and asked where the criminal cases under Article 275 were for those who recorded the videos.
He also argued that Russia was fighting not only Ukraine but “the West as a whole,” and linked the attack to the end of the G7 summit. At the same time, some pro-war Telegram authors acknowledged that trying to stop such videos from appearing online was largely pointless. The channel Zapiski Veterana wrote that authorities would have to accept the existence of such footage because NATO has high-resolution satellites, while Rybar noted that the volume of recordings helps explain why security agencies try to block communications during air raids.
Some Z-authors blamed foreign workers at markets in southwestern Moscow for publishing the videos. Blogger Colonelcassad proposed detaining them on camera, fining them, and deporting them with a ban on re-entry.
Assessments of air defense
At the same time, several pro-war bloggers praised Russia’s air defenses. According to official data, 180 drones were shot down over the Moscow region, although the strike on the plant in Kapotnya was not prevented. War correspondent Alexander Kots wrote that air defense and electronic warfare crews had operated at the maximum possible pace, while the channel Belarusian Silovik said no air defense system in the world can guarantee a 100 percent result during a mass attack.