Russian authorities on Friday issued a missile alert across all six regions of the Ural Federal District for the first time since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022.
Nearly 20 regions across the country issued missile alerts starting at 2:25 p.m. Moscow time. Local officials urged residents to seek shelter and warned that mobile internet services would be temporarily disrupted.
“For the first time ever, a ‘Missile Danger’ alert has been issued across the entire Ural Federal District,” Artyom Zhoga, the Kremlin’s envoy to the district, wrote in a post on Telegram.
Among the regions affected was the Yamalo-Nenets autonomous district, a vast Arctic territory located roughly 2,300 kilometers (1,400 miles) from the Ukrainian border, and Western Siberia’s Tyumen region.
The regions of Sverdlovsk, Kurgan and Chelyabinsk, as well as the Khanty-Mansi autonomous district, also make up the Ural Federal District.
