From the swamps of St Petersburg, where the Neva runs grey with oligarch tears and the air smells of corruption and cheap cologne, comes the latest farce in the theatre of the absurd. The Russian Economic Forum, that congregation of suited crocodiles and their pocket stoat officials, was rudely interrupted by the sound of angry bees. Drones, my friends. Not the sort that deliver your Amazon parcels, but the kind that deliver a message written in fire and shrapnel.
Imagine, if you will, the scene: A thousand pinstriped vultures picking at the carcass of a fake economy, draining glasses of vodka as expensive as a small African nation, when suddenly the sky starts buzzing like a disturbed hornet's nest. The braying laughter turns to panicked shrieks. Ties become tourniquets. The canapés go flying. It is the sound of reality crashing the party, uninvited and unwelcome.
The Kremlin's spin machine, that magnificent contraption of lies and bravado, immediately clanked into gear. 'A false flag,' they declared. 'A provocation by Ukrainian agents.' But the smoke rising from the tarmac told a different story. These were no phantom planes from a ghost airport. These were drones. Real ones. The sort that don't care about your suit or your Rolex or your cosy relationship with Gazprom.
Now, I am no military strategist. I couldn't tell a HIMARS from a hairdryer. But even this gin-soaked correspondent can spot a metaphor when it hits him in the face. This is not just an attack on a conference centre. This is a strike on the very idea of Russian invincibility. The message is clear: There is no sanctuary. Not in a forum. Not in a city. Not in a bunker. The party is over. The champagne has turned to vinegar.
In the aftermath, we have the usual circus. Officials in ill-fitting uniforms pointing fingers at everyone but themselves. A chorus of outrage from state TV anchors who look like they've just swallowed a wasp. And a public that is learning, slowly, that the fortress walls have holes.
Yet what sticks in the craw is not the audacity of the strike. It is the sheer incompetence of a regime that cannot protect its own elite from a few hobbyist drones. If this were a film, it would be a farce. But it is real. And the blood on the tarmac is real.
The forum will no doubt resume tomorrow. The suits will be brushed. The lies will be polished. The vodka will flow again. But a crack has appeared in the facade. And once a crack appears, the whole edifice starts to crumble. Or, as a wise man once said, you can't build a five-year plan on a foundation of hot air and paranoia.
St Petersburg, once known as the Venice of the North, now looks more like the Aleppo of the Baltic. The drones have spoken. And their message is simple: The war has come home.
This is Biff Thistlethwaite, signing off from the bar of the Hotel Astoria, where the gin is warm but the stories are colder.
