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1/ Citizens of Moscow are being advised to "turn to God," "buy a dacha," or "go to another country" in the event of an air raid, due to the unavailability of bomb shelters. Most of the up-to-date ones appear to be reserved for officials of the government or Putin's party. ⬇️ 
2/ 'We can explain' has carried out a survey of air raid shelter availability in Moscow, a year on from an edict by the city's mayor to make shelters available to the population following the first direct attacks by Ukrainian drones. However, the results are unimpressive.
3/ According to Moscow City Duma deputy Sergei Mitrokhin, although there are many shelters in Moscow, "no one knows what condition they are in and where they are. There are no signs, no identification marks."
4/ "If the Ministry of Emergency Situations reports on some work in this direction, then it is, of course, throwing dust in your eyes."
5/ Even the whereabouts of the shelters is kept secret. When City Duma deputy Evgeny Stupin tried to find out the number and locations of the shelters by submitting an official request to the Moscow Government, he was simply told "shelters are available."
6/ Every district has a civil emergency response centre, but they are far from helpful. The owner of a Telegram channel covering Moscow's shelters notes that these points have "very exotic opening hours; they don’t talk to people there and assure them that there is no danger."
7/ In a bureaucratic move reminiscent of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy's planning office on Alpha Centauri, information on shelters can only be obtained in person from Moscow's emergency response centres, which are only open on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 3 to 5 pm.
8/ Activists who asked about the availability of shelters were told by the Khovrino Emergency Situations centre to "trust in God," and in Chertanovo Yuzhnoye, to "buy a dacha" or "move to another country."
9/ An employee at the Vykhino-Zhulebino district Emergency Situations centre told a journalist who asked where the shelters were: "Today there may be some addresses, tomorrow there may be other addresses." Staff are not allowed to publish information on shelters.
10/ In Moscow's Biryulyovo district (population 150,000), only 4 shelters are reportedly available. There are none at all in the Tagansky district (population 110,000). A duty officer in the Nizhegorodsky district told a reporter cheerfully: "We are all going to die!"
11/ The vagueness is likely due to the fact that many shelters are antiquated or unusable. There are said to be almost no usable purpose-built shelters left in Moscow. Many have been demolished or rented out for commercial purposes, often as warehouses or storage facilities.
12/ Instead, citizens have to rely on unventilated basements in 1950s apartment blocks, which may not even be accessible to them. 'We can explain' found one typical example:
"The entrance to the basement is down the stairs. There are iron bars with a lock on the door.
"The entrance to the basement is down the stairs. There are iron bars with a lock on the door.
13/ "An A4 sheet with the inscription “Shelter” is glued with tape, and below there is an inscription with the address of the Civil Defence and Emergency Situations point, the mobile phone number of the duty officer and the notification: …
14/ …'The keys are with the person responsible for the protective structure.' "
Many basement shelters are unfurnished. "Some of our basements are not even equipped, so if you have the opportunity to escape from the city, it’s better to do so,” a civil defence employee says.
Many basement shelters are unfurnished. "Some of our basements are not even equipped, so if you have the opportunity to escape from the city, it’s better to do so,” a civil defence employee says.
15/ "I believe that Russia is not prepared at all," the employee adds. "Until the cock pecked us in the ass, there was nothing there at all. Now we have put toilets, washbasins, beds, flashlights, and first aid kits there."
16/ According to City Duma deputy Dmitry Loktev, the city authorities had a budget of 18.5 billion rubles ($202 million) for civil defence in the capital, which was supposed to have been used to build 16 new shelters and refurbish existing ones.
17/ However, there is little sign that anything useful has been done with the money. City Duma deputy Evgeny Stupin hints that it has been stolen, noting that information about expenditure on security measures is treated as highly secret.
18/ 'We can explain' found from government procurement records that expenditure is mostly going on shelters in government buildings. Only one shelter in a residential building was repaired: it houses the local branch of United Russia, Putin's political party.
19/ Muscovites themselves have little awareness of the shelters; most intend to take shelter in the subway. Mitrokhin comments: "It seems to me that people live in a different reality. They simply push out everything dangerous and everything frightening from their consciousness."
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