To me it’s like a practice fire drill, in a Company. Employees are supposed to take the stairs not the elevator, yet some are lazy & take the elevator, depending on how many floors in a building a Company occupies. It’s simply practice for the real stuff. But, agreed, in this case, it is only practice — no need to sensationlize.
And since it is Russia then taking the elevator instead of stairs is substituted with drinking vodka all day.
It was an annual event in Soviet Union. People were taken to a forest and they just drank all day.