St Petersburg, the city of czars and canals, hosted Russia’s economic forum this week. But the most talked-about arrivals were not global financiers or oligarchs. They were Ukrainian drones. As Vladimir Putin prepared to address an audience of loyalists and cautious investors, the hum of engines overhead delivered a pointed message: the war has reached Russia’s second city.
For locals, the psychological shift is palpable. A woman in a cafe near the Nevsky Prospekt told me: ‘We used to think it was safe here. Now the noise in the sky makes me jump.’ This is the human cost of a conflict that refuses to stay contained. The Kremlin’s narrative of a ‘special military operation’ far away is fraying when debris falls on your own streets.
Meanwhile, in London, the Foreign Office issued a statement backing Ukraine’s right to self-defence. It was a careful choice of words: not ‘escalation’, but ‘self-defence’. The UK’s stance is clear, even as other allies hesitate. Yet the cultural shift here is subtle. In British cafes, the topic is less about geopolitics and more about where this ends. A retired diplomat I spoke with mused: ‘We are witnessing the slow erosion of the idea that war has clear front lines. It’s everywhere now.’
On the streets of St Petersburg, the drone attacks have also reignited class dynamics long thought dormant. The wealthy, who can afford to leave, are renting dachas in remote regions. Those without means stay, facing anxiety and increased surveillance. A student at the university told me: ‘My parents say this is just Western propaganda. But I can hear the air raid sirens.’
The economic forum itself put on a brave face, but attendance was down, with Western investors conspicuously absent. The Russians who did come spoke of ‘resilience’ and ‘import substitution’, though the hollow ring was unmistakable. One economist, speaking off the record, admitted: ‘The cost of this war is being paid in innovation lost and talent fleeing. The drones are a symbol of how far the reach of this conflict has extended.’
For the rest of the world, this is a moment of reckoning. The human cost is no longer confined to the Donbas or Crimea. It is in the skies over a city famous for ballet and White Nights. And it is in the psyches of ordinary people who must now decide whether to stay or go. The cultural shift is that no one feels safe anymore. That is the real story here, unfolding not in briefing rooms but in the anxious glances of people on the street.
