By Ekaterina Janashia | 2026-04-01

On a cold November night in 2025, Evgenia Tretyakova was two months into her dream apartment in the coastal town of Tuapse when a Ukrainian drone turned it to ash. She grabbed her child in one arm, her dog under the other, and ran through smoke-filled rooms as the kitchen blazed. The next morning, a delivery crew arrived with the sofa she'd ordered before the strike.

"It was comical," she said. "There was nothing left of the apartment."

As Russia's war enters its fifth year, strikes once confined to border regions are carving through the Russian heartland. And as the damage spreads, so does a darker reality: the government that launched this war has no unified system to compensate the citizens it puts at risk. The burden falls on underfunded regional governments, producing a chaotic patchwork of aid that leaves victims fighting their own bureaucracies in court -- for months, sometimes years -- just to fix a leaky roof.

A postcode lottery of aid

A February investigation by independent outlet Verstka analyzed 100 civil lawsuits across eight regions, including Belgorod, Kursk, Lipetsk and Moscow, where residents challenged state compensation decisions. The findings expose a system riddled with technicalities and regional disparities.

Emergency aid caps vary wildly. In Rostov, the maximum payout is 15,675 rubles ($170) per person. In Lipetsk, residents may receive a flat "social support" payment of 50,000 rubles ($540). Neither figure approaches the millions of rubles it costs to rebuild a destroyed home.

State compensation covers only items deemed "essential property" -- a refrigerator, a stove, a kitchen cupboard, a table, a chair, a bed. A computer, a television, specialized medical equipment: the state refuses to pay for any of it. Many of the lawsuits Verstka analyzed stem from commissions rejecting damaged items as non-essential, leaving families to refurnish entirely out of pocket.

The paperwork trap

To qualify for aid, victims must prove they were "permanently residing" in the damaged home at the time of the strike. In a country where many people live in apartments without official registration, known as propiska, or in homes not entered into Russia's Unified State Register of Real Estate, that requirement becomes a trap.

Vadim Kravtsov's home in the Moscow region was fully equipped with electricity, gas, and water when drone debris hit it. On paper, it was registered as an outbuilding, not a residence.

"Registering it as a residential property was difficult, and I hadn't done it before the strike," he said.

Authorities capped his payout at 500,000 rubles ($5,400). His actual damages exceeded 5 million rubles ($54,000). For over a year, he has been repairing his home with money crowdsourced from friends and strangers.

Courts rule. Repairs wait.

Courts are often the only recourse.

In 65 of the 100 cases Verstka analyzed, judges ruled in favor of citizens, ordering local administrations to pay. But a court victory does not equal relief. Funds must be allocated from strained regional budgets, and victims wait in ruins while that process plays out.

In Tuapse, authorities covered the hole in Tretyakova's roof with two layers of plastic film. It has stayed that way for months.

State payments never came. Tretyakova said neighbors and strangers stepped in with food, clothing, and bedding.

"It was only possible thanks to the help of people," she said.

Across Russia, that informal safety net -- crowdfunding campaigns, volunteer clean-up crews, neighbors sharing what they have -- has become the primary system of support for drone strike victims.

The government that launched the war has yet to build a functional alternative.