On Sunday afternoon, what the Russian Defense Ministry said was a Ukrainian drone, should have been shot down over the small town. Today, residents are both shocked and angry after their lives were put in danger.

This is written by the Reuters news agency.

– It is completely unheard of to shoot it down over a residential area. There is a field just 500 meters away. They could have shot him there. Why on our houses? People were injured, Elena (35), a resident of Kirezhevsk, told Reuters.

She doesn’t want to give her full name.

– What if the children had been at home? They would have been killed. Nobody thought of it. They let it happen. They do not care. I have no other explanation, Elena continues.

– The whole house shook

Three people have been injured after Russia shot down an allegedly Ukrainian drone over the small town in Tula Oblast, about 220 kilometers south of Moscow.

The Kirezhevsk incident must have happened on the afternoon of Sunday, March 26.

According to the Russian Defense Ministry, several apartment buildings were also destroyed. Russia’s state-controlled Tass news agency writes that none of the people were seriously injured, but that five private homes were destroyed.

– NATO must see the seriousness

– We are used to seeing these things on the internet, but now we feel them on our bodies. Now we know what it is. The whole house shook, says Yuri Ovchinnikov, who, according to Reuters, was at home with his wife when the drone was shot down.

– I graduated from an aviation academy where I majored in flight control systems, so I know how it works. Why did they shoot him, I wonder. They were caught sleeping in class. And they should be honest about it, he continues.

Denies Ukrainian attacks

Ukrainian authorities have yet to comment on the incident.

Ukraine has always denied being behind alleged drone attacks inside Russian territory. In a March 1 statement, President Volodymyr Zelenskyj’s adviser Mykhajlo Podoljak wrote that Ukraine is not carrying out attacks inside Russian territory.

– Ukraine is waging a defensive war to reoccupy all of its territory. This is a biased assumption, wrote Podoljak.

Drone crash near Moscow: – Failed attack

The statement came after Russian authorities reported that a drone had crashed into a Gazprom facility near the Russian capital and that they had shot down two Ukrainian drones in southern Russia the previous night.

Podoljak believes the reported drone incidents are “internal attacks”, which are an expression of “the panic and disintegration of the Russian Federation”.

Don’t you dare to enter

The explosion in Kirezhevsk reportedly caused a large crater in the center of the city, and photos and videos on social media show a muddy crater near a badly damaged building.

Reuters was unable to verify these images, but visited the city. There they saw destroyed houses with broken roofs and windows. The alleged crater site has been closed to the media, the news agency writes.

They also spoke to Svetlana, 70, who cries as she describes the damage to her home.

– We don’t know what to do. I walk into my house and the floors are cracking, the walls are cracking. I’m afraid to come in, she said.