The whir of drones over St Petersburg this week was more than a military incident. It was a psychological rupture. For two days, the city’s Economic Forum highlighted Russia’s resilience.
Then, on Thursday evening, the sky turned hostile. Small drones struck near the expo centre, sending delegates scurrying and grounding flights. British defence experts were quick to assess Russia’s vulnerability.
But on the ground, in the cafes and on the Nevsky Prospekt, the story was different. ‘They said we were safe here,’ a local translator told me. ‘Now, even St Petersburg feels like a front line.
’ The city prides itself on being Russia’s cultural heart, a bastion of sophistication. To see it targeted, even symbolically, is a blow to the national narrative of invincibility. The forum continued, but the mood had curdled.
Attendees spoke in hushed tones. The buffet queues were subdued. This was not a battlefield defeat, but a social fracture.
Ordinary Russians are now calculating risk in a new way. The drones may have caused minimal damage, but they landed a direct hit on the collective psyche. The question is not whether Russia can defend its skies, but how a society adapts when its sense of security is dismantled piece by piece.
