Russians who film Ukrainian attacks and post them on social media are being detained, fined, and forced to apologize on camera

Ukraine’s military is attacking Russian cities with growing intensity, and the consequences of these attacks are becoming more severe with each passing week. Ukraine’s attacks have hit not only military targets but also oil refineries, warehouses, and residential buildings. Most regional administrations in Russia have already banned filming of strikes and their aftermath, but Russians keep posting footage of fires and flying missiles on social media. Mediazona reports on what this has meant for some of them. Meduza is publishing the article in full.Ukraine launched a missile strike on a military plant in Volgograd in the early hours of June 27, 2026. Two people were killed, and another 11 were injured. Footage filmed by residents of the missiles flying overhead appeared almost immediately in local social media groups, followed by video showing smoke and fire at the plant. The clips later spread to Ukrainian Telegram channels and media outlets. By then, a ban on publishing footage of drone attacks and air defense operations had already been in effect in the Volgograd region for nearly a year and a half.The Internal Affairs Ministry reported detaining three local residents the very next day. Police made them explain on camera why they had filmed the strikes on the plant — and apologize.One of the videos was filmed by a recent high school graduate, whom police brought in for questioning right after his graduation ceremony. He told police he had first filmed two missiles flying overhead and a drone on his phone “for himself,” then posted the clip to his Telegram channel, which has 60 subscribers. He assured investigators that no one had asked him to record the moment of the attack on the plant.“Did you realize the repercussions at the time you posted the video?” one of the Internal Affairs Ministry officers asks the teenager.“No.”“And do you understand now what this leads to and what the repercussions could be?”“Yes. There’s no need to film anything anymore, no objects. I won’t do that again.”Another detained woman had filmed smoke rising over the plant and sent the video to a work chat on the Max messenger. She told investigators she hadn’t forwarded it anywhere else: not to media outlets, not to large communities. In a video released by law enforcement, she says she only now “realizes” that the footage she recorded could have ended up in the hands of “the enemy.”“I want to urge everyone never to make any videos, any photographs, not to send any audio messages or video messages anywhere, not to be drawn in by anything at all. No questions, no money: all of it could easily end up with our enemy,” she says on camera.A second Volgograd woman filmed the Ukrainian missile flying overhead and sent the recording to acquaintances. Police recorded her apology on video as well. She said she hadn’t expected her clip to end up “in various Ukrainian social media groups.” “So I sincerely apologize, I ask forgiveness, and I urge everyone not to film videos, not to take photographs, and not to send them out on social media,” she said.A month later, a 19-year-old woman from Krasnodar apologized on camera after filming a burning Wildberries warehouse following a drone attack. Pointing at the fire, she said sarcastically, “Great, now my mom is out of a job.”“On July 22, I posted online a video from the site where the drones came down. I admit my guilt and promise this won’t happen again,” she said after her detention. Police, who released the recording, promised to issue her an administrative citation.How the bans came aboutRussia has no single federal law banning the filming of drones, air defense operations, or the aftermath of attacks. Instead, individual regions impose their own restrictions through decisions by emergency response headquarters and governors.The legal basis dates to Decree No. 757, which Vladimir Putin signed and published in October 2022. It divided Russia’s regions into several levels of readiness and allowed local authorities to adopt additional security measures — though the decree itself contained no direct ban on publications.Kursk and Leningrad regions were among the first to ban posting footage of air defense operations, drone attacks, and their aftermath, in early 2024. Other regions soon followed with similar bans and fines.Authorities justify the bans as a security measure: geolocation data embedded in videos can reveal the point of impact or a drone’s flight path, while footage of air defense operations can help assess the location, range, and effectiveness of the systems themselves.Regions introduced bans piecemeal throughout 2024, then far more rapidly across the country the following year. According to data from the Russian state news agency TASS, filming restrictions were in effect in 33 regions by the end of August 2025, and by April 2026 that number had grown nearly twofold, to at least 64.What exactly is banned and how violators are punishedWhat’s banned varies from region to region. Some restrict footage of drone attacks, the aftermath of strikes, and air defense operations; others extend the bans to any infrastructure that could be classified as critically important. In Adygea, for instance, publishing footage that reveals the location of energy facilities, factories, and bridges is forbidden.Administrative liability for violating these restrictions isn’t established everywhere, though. As the Center for the Protection of Media Rights notes, it still doesn’t exist in Moscow and Kaliningrad regions, or in some regions of the Far East and Siberia. However, even there people can be punished for publishing footage of an attack’s aftermath, cited under Article 20.6.1 of Russia’s Administrative Offenses Code for failing to comply with rules of conduct during an emergency or the threat of one.Fines for individuals for a first offense range from 1,000 to 5,000 rubles in many regions. For organizations, the amounts are far higher, reaching 500,000 or 1 million rubles.The Kaluga region has built the most notable enforcement record. Its regional legislature introduced fines for publishing photos and videos of drones in September 2024, and by early summer 2025, residents had already received around 50 citations, most of them issued to administrators of websites, Telegram channels, and VK groups. By the end of June 2026, the region had fined more than 70 people and organizations a total of about 700,000 rubles.Moscow introduced a similar ban in mid-May 2026; restrictions have been in effect in St. Petersburg since early 2025.Claiming ignorance of the ban — or of what one was actually filming — apparently doesn’t help avoid punishment; courts care only about the fact of publication. A resident of Orenburg received a fine of 3,000 rubles in July 2026 for a video she posted on Telegram, after seeing a column of black smoke rising behind an apartment building and assuming it was a fire caused by a household gas explosion.It also doesn’t matter where residents published the footage of an attack: a work chat, a small channel for friends, or a dacha cooperative chat all count the same.How authors of posts are foundViolators are tracked down in roughly the same way everywhere. Officials and law enforcement monitor Telegram, VK, and other social networks, take screenshots of posts, and identify the authors using account names or other details visible in the video itself that reveal the filming location.Different agencies are involved. In Kaluga region, for example, employees of the Center for Regional Management help track down posts showing the aftermath of attacks.In Sochi, officers of the Interior Ministry’s Center for Combating Extremism (Center E) found a tourist from Chelyabinsk region who had filmed air defense operations on her phone while walking along the waterfront in June 2026. The woman said she hadn’t known about the filming ban in Krasnodar Krai and had been recording what was happening “for the clicks” and “had no ill intentions.”In Bryansk region, employees of the regional security department said several agencies monitor social networks every day and that user data can be identified “through many official means.” According to officials, violators themselves were often surprised that authorities had found them.Not just finesPunishment for filming drones isn’t limited to fines: authors of such posts can also be forced to apologize on camera at a police station.One of the first such cases came in late November 2024, after drones attacked an oil depot in Kaluga. Local residents filmed the scene and posted the videos on social media. Pro-government blogger Yevgeny Serkin said the footage had already appeared on “enemy” Telegram channels within an hour, and he published a video of the authors apologizing. According to Serkin, police found the violators within a day and held “educational conversations” with them.“I want to warn everyone, residents, patriots of this country, that such actions must not be carried out, since they carry serious repercussions,” a detained Kaluga resident says in the video.In February 2026, Center E officers found a 13-year-old schoolgirl from Sochi who had filmed herself with a pot on her head during a drone attack. In the clip, the girl says she was heading “into battle” and “sharply criticized the work of the sirens and air defense using profanity,” the Russian news website Gazeta.ru reported. Police summoned the girl and her parents; there, she explained that she had recorded the clip to “relieve her friends’ stress” and hadn’t intended to mock the military. Police noted she might be placed on a juvenile watch list.An 18-year-old resident of Cheboksary had to apologize for filming drone strikes in May 2026. The Internal Affairs Ministry’s directorate for Chuvashia published a recording in which the young man expresses condolences to those killed and injured, then separately apologizes for smiling on camera while filming.Pro-war blogger Vladimir Kucherenko — known under the pseudonym Maxim Kalashnikov and the author of the Telegram channel Roi TV — was also summoned to the police in Moscow, after he posted a video showing a fire at an oil refinery in Kapotnya following a drone attack.After the visit to the police station, the blogger said “the conversation with Center E was polite,” and that he hadn’t known about the ban introduced in the capital on publishing footage of the aftermath of attacks. “Basically, they drew up a report. At most, it’s an administrative case. But it’s not yet clear whether there will be one,” Kalashnikov added.At Meduza, we are committed to transparency about our use of artificial intelligence in the newsroom. The story you’re reading was written by one of our living, breathing journalists and translated from Russian using an AI model configured to follow our strict editorial standards. This translation process is the result of extensive testing and refinements to ensure our English-language coverage is timely and accurate. A Meduza editor reviews every draft before publication.If you find any errors in this translation, please contact us at [email protected].To read Meduza’s exclusive content in English, please subscribe to our newsletter.Mediazona