They hovered briefly, then took off toward the Belaya military airfield.
The next day, the independent outlet People of Baikal visited several nearby villages to hear firsthand how locals were making sense of the attack.
Beyond Andrey’s home lie garden plots and open fields, along a road that leads to the nearby village of Badai.
It’s made up mostly of five-story apartment blocks, built for personnel from the military base and the nearby Belaya airfield.
It’s fine!” Living near the airfield ‘It feels like a real war’ As Russian military planes keep crashing nearby, a Siberian village lives in fear
Around 5:00 p.m. on Sunday night. M. In the Irkutsk area of Russia, what appeared to be a typical cargo truck pulled up next to a roadside café. Before drones started taking off from its roof, nobody gave it much thought. After a brief hover, they departed in the direction of the military airfield at Belaya. After a few minutes, bluish-gray smoke began to rise from the base.
Over 100 FPV drones were smuggled into Russia and launched from deep within the nation as part of the Ukrainian Security Service’s clandestine “Spiderweb” operation, which targeted military aircraft located far from the front line. Drones had hit Siberia for the first time during the conflict.
In order to learn more about how the locals were interpreting the attack, the independent publication People of Baikal traveled to a number of neighboring villages the following day. Meduza makes their report available in English.
At the front, it’s even worse.
In a neighborhood known to the locals as “Shamotka,” on the outskirts of Novomaltinsk, Andrey Kharchenko resides. Matrosova is the only street in this area, and it is lined with brick apartment buildings that are two stories high. A road that leads to the neighboring village of Badai passes beyond Andrey’s house, where there are open fields and garden plots.
Fenced off from the rest of the area, the airfield is only two kilometers (1 and a half miles) across those fields. You can see the Belaya Air Base and the planes that were the target of the attack from the window of Andrey’s second-floor apartment. Each drone flew in the direction of the airfield over Matrosova Street.
At the time, Andrey and his spouse, Yekaterina, were at home and observed the drones flying overhead from their window. They tallied 17. There were 19, according to other locals. According to Andrey, the drones originated from the Belaya River as well as the truck parked on the highway, which is where official reports indicate they came from. On June 2, a local woman named Olga who requested that her last name not be used also brought up this second trajectory with the People of Baikal. The same was stated by Valentina Yeremina, another resident. The drones flew in three-person groups, Andrey said.
Andrey’s first thought was for his kids, who were at a local playground and were six and eight years old. He hurried outside and took the terrified kids home. Staying at the window, Yekaterina used her phone to record. The field separating Novomaltinsk from the base is visible in her video as it rises in pale smoke. Smoke fills the sky on the base itself, appearing darker and charcoal in color. A female voice says, “Drones are bombing us,” off-camera. “It’s worse at the front,” a child’s voice responds. “”.
Yekaterina claims that people from surrounding five-story apartment complexes rushed to the bomb shelters, but she is unaware of the locations or state of the shelters. Ultimately, nobody was able to enter because the shelters were secured.
A group of local men with hunting rifles ran out to the fields behind his building and started shooting at the drones, downing a few of them, Andrey told People of Baikal. The air still smells of smoke, and a sizable burned patch marks the field behind the building.
On the local Telegram channel, Tatyana Markova, the head of Novomaltinsk, declared a curfew, prohibiting citizens from leaving their homes after 10:00 p.m. A.
Following the strike, residents blocked the road leading from Novomaltinsk to the nearby village of Badai, followed by police. According to Yekaterina, “personnel”—presumably from the FSB—were working in their area all night.
Markova reiterated her call for people to remain indoors until 10:00 a.m. on June 2. A. It was during this period that Andrey observed bomb disposal teams at work in the field. It was 2:23 p.m. that afternoon. A. confirmed that demining operations were in progress in an update published by the village government. By June 3rd, the field was once more deserted.
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Residents of the village claim that the drone strike on the Belaya base destroyed nine military aircraft; Andrey claims to have learned of this information from a neighbor who works there. The same neighbor claimed that four of the aircraft had been fully fueled and munitions-loaded and were set to depart for the “zone” (Ukraine) on Monday, June 2.
Andrey claims that everyone has been on edge since the attack because they fear it might occur again. He clarifies that nobody is aware of the number of additional trucks they purchased for this. “Perhaps they will return. “.”.
“The airfield is being struck by them.”.
The village of Badai is located across the field from Novomaltinsk, three kilometers (1.08 miles) away. Plus, it’s only two kilometers away from the airfield.
We are directly across the fields from the air base, which is the epicenter. Lyudmila Zuyeva, a local, acknowledges, “I’m still shaking.”. A small grocery store in Badai is operated by her and her 34-year-old son, Alexander.
at approximately 5:20 p.m. on Sunday. m. Her daughter ran up to her while she was in her yard and pushed a phone into her hands while saying, “It’s Alexander.”. Lyudmila could hear her son’s voice being muffled by a loud roar on the line. “Mom, they are striking the airfield,” he yelled. She dashed to the street, where she could make out the airfield in the distance. Dust and black smoke clouds were ascending into the sky.
My legs suddenly failed me. The ground seemed to be trembling beneath me,” she remembers. “I assumed we would be the next to be struck. Immediately, I wanted to run and grab my twin granddaughters, who are three years old, and bring them inside my home. It’s safer because my house is brick, while everyone else’s is wooden. “.”.
Alexander showed up shortly after, took his hunting rifle out of a safe, and headed to Novomaltinsk with some other men from the area to try to shoot down the drones.
According to Lyudmila, a large number of Badai locals attempted to leave the village by grabbing their documents and jumping in their vehicles. Her son and other local men blocked the road between Badai and Novomaltinsk almost immediately, so she is unsure if anyone managed to escape. They pulled over and looked at each vehicle. Later, Alexander told a local TV station, “We did it on our own initiative, as citizens.”. The police then became involved.
Alexander Zuyev established a nonprofit organization to aid Russian soldiers and their families following Russia’s September 2022 mobilization campaign. With pride, Lyudmila remembers that her son was among the first in the area to arrange for humanitarian assistance for recently mobilized troops. He sent equipment to the front and brought supplies to a military unit in Yurga. Along with the others, Alexander did not enlist or deploy. Lyudmila clarifies, “He can’t just give up everything because he’s a business owner.”.
In order to assist, the mothers of soldiers gathered at the Zuyevs’ store to weave camouflage netting. However, the women stopped attending once peace talks started.
“What is there to be afraid of?”.
The village of Sredny was a closed military town until 2011. Built primarily for military personnel from the nearby Belaya airfield and the military base, it consists of five-story apartment buildings. Now, a large number of the apartments are deserted, with their broken windows wide open. However, some of the nearby apartments are still inhabited.
Officers inspected every passing car and closed off the main road into the village following the drone strike. For an entire day, long-haul trucks backed up the road. The next evening, it was formally reopened. No outward indications of the attack were present by June 3. Once more, there were no barriers preventing cars from entering the village. The only indication that anything had happened was the camouflaged individuals wandering the streets.
Anton Pylaev, owner of a grocery store in Novomaltinsk, is positioned behind the counter. In addition, he serves on the village council. According to locals, he picked up a hunting rifle and participated in Sunday night’s drone-downing operation. Pylaev denies that. All he says is that he “saw everything” while working at the store. “”.
He insists there was nothing scary about it while grinning. He claims that the village’s residents are no longer afraid. They carry on with their lives, go grocery shopping, and do not discuss the incident at all. In the store, a middle-aged man is the only customer standing quietly. He ignores Pylaev’s remark, picking up a bottle of milk in silence and refusing to talk about the drones.
According to a cashier at the store, “I was driving back from the dacha that evening.”. “I noticed a drone—it briefly hovered over my car before taking off in the direction of the airfield. Because of the village’s close proximity to the military base, civilian drones had long been prohibited there, so she claims she knew right away that it was a combat drone. “What’s there to be afraid of? It’s fine!” she recalls the story while laughing.
living close to the airfield.
A Siberian village lives in terror as Russian military planes continue to crash close by. “It feels like a real war.”.
