Let us dispense with the euphemisms. What we witnessed over St Petersburg was not an ‘escalation’ or a ‘tactical shift’. It was the sound of a civilisation reminding itself that war, once begun, devours all notions of sanctuary. The Ukrainian drone blitz on Russia’s imperial cradle has been branded ‘unprecedented’ by the chattering classes, as though history began the day before yesterday. But for those of us who read Gibbon at breakfast, this is merely the latest chapter in a story as old as the siege of Troy: the illusion of invulnerability shattered by a plucky adversary with a grudge and a long-range toy.
Consider the geography. St Petersburg is not Bakhmut or Kherson. It is the city of Peter the Great, the window on the West, a place that has always fancied itself above the fray of mere warfare. And yet here we are, with drones buzzing over its canals like mechanical mosquitoes, while Whitehall solemnly pledges fresh long-range strike support. The British government, ever eager to play the role of Pericles to Ukraine’s Athens, has signed another cheque drawn on the bank of historical inevitability. But what exactly are we supporting? A strategy to bleed Russia? A moral crusade? Or the slow, grinding transformation of Europe into a shooting gallery for a new generation of airborne tin cans?
The word ‘unprecedented’ deserves scrutiny. In the Victorian era, the British bombarded Alexandria from the sea. In 1940, the Luftwaffe visited Coventry. In 2024, a Ukrainian pilot launches a drone from a laptop. The technology has changed; the principle has not. War is a terrible leveller. It strips away the pretence that some cities are too beautiful, too historic, too important to be touched. St Petersburg is not special. It is a target like any other. And the British pledge of long-range strike support is not a sign of resolve. It is a symptom of intellectual decadence: the belief that we can outsource our moral discomfort to machines and still sleep soundly.
Let us examine the psychology. The Ukrainian drone blitz is a message, and messages in war are written in blood and steel. It says: ‘You are not safe. Your navy, your symbolism, your cultural arrogance: none of it shields you.’ It is the same impulse that drove the Dambusters or the raid on Dieppe. But we must ask whether this gamble is prudent. Every strike on St Petersburg invites a response, and responses in this war tend to be asymmetrical in the worst way. The Kremlin has already hinted at ‘retaliatory measures’ that could involve cyber attacks on British infrastructure or the arming of shadowy proxies. We cheer the drones today. We may curse them tomorrow.
The UK’s pledge is particularly revealing. We have run out of diplomatic options, so we fall back on the one thing we still produce in quantity: vaguely worded promises of military aid. ‘Long-range strike support’ is a phrase designed to sound decisive without committing to specifics. It is the bureaucratic equivalent of a shrug. The Victorians, for all their faults, did not mince words. When Palmerston threatened to bombard a city, he named the date. We, by contrast, offer a loan of cruise missiles and a hope that our lawyers have dotted the proper i’s.
What does this mean for national identity? Britain once defined itself by its empire, then by its post-war retreat, and now by its role as the anxious uncle of transatlantic relations. The pledge to Ukraine is a continuation of that trend: we cannot fight our own wars, but we can supply the weapons for others to fight theirs. It is noblesse oblige without the noble. It is a cheque drawn on a bank that is rapidly going bust.
The drone blitz on St Petersburg is a moment of clarity. It tells us that the rules of war, like the rules of peace, are negotiable. It tells us that no city is sacred, no history immune to the rot of conflict. And it tells us that Britain, for all its talk of leadership, is content to watch from the sidelines, handing out long-range toys to a nation that already has too many. We should not applaud. We should weep for the world we have built and the one we are still building.
The Fall of Rome did not come with a single barbarian charge. It came with a thousand small decisions, each one justified by necessity, each one eroding a pillar of the old order. The drone over St Petersburg is one such decision. And we, in our cleverness, have already chosen our side.
