For three days in June, St Petersburg’s Expoforum convention centre usually hums with the polite murmur of deals being made, hands being shaken, and sanctions being side-stepped. The St Petersburg International Economic Forum, Russia’s answer to Davos, is a stage for the country’s elite to project confidence and stability. But this year, the script was torn up by a very 21st century plot twist: Ukrainian drone attacks.
On the first day of the forum, as oligarchs and officials sipped champagne and discussed ‘multipolar world orders’, the whir of an incoming drone shattered the carefully curated calm. Air defence systems rattled the windows. Delegates were hurried into basements. The message was clear: no amount of luxury branding or geopolitical grievance can insulate you from a war that is now constantly knocking at the door.
Let’s be honest about the psychology here. For three years, Russia’s business class has lived in a bubble of state-sanctioned denial. The war is something happening ‘out there’ in the fields of Ukraine, not in the mirrored lobbies of St Petersburg. But drones don’t respect invitations. They don’t care about your panel discussion on ‘Investment Opportunities in the New Reality’. They just care about range and payload.
The attacks, which targeted the forum’s second day, forced organisers to cancel several sessions and tighten security to levels usually reserved for a state funeral. Witnesses described a surreal scene: men in Brioni suits huddling in corridors, their bodyguards suddenly looking very keen. It was a moment of what sociologists call ‘cognitive dissonance’ – the clash between the story you tell yourself and the reality you are forced to live.
What does this mean for the ordinary Russian? On the surface, not much. The forum continued, albeit with fewer handshakes and more glances at the sky. But underneath, there is a creeping recognition that the war is no longer a television event. It is a material disruption to the daily rhythm of power. If drones can reach St Petersburg, the imperial city of Peter the Great, then no corner of the motherland is safe. This is a cultural shift as much as a military one: the end of the idea that the war is strictly for the front lines.
For the West, this is a moment to watch closely. The Russian elite’s faith in the system is their only real currency. If that faith wavers – if they start to ask, ‘Can the Kremlin protect us?’ – then the cracks in the facade will become canyons. The forum was meant to showcase Russia as a stable partner for the Global South. Instead, it showed a leadership that cannot guarantee a quiet business lunch.
I spoke to a former Moscow banker now living in exile. He laughed, a little bitterly. ‘They thought they were above it all,’ he said. ‘Now they know: nobody is above a drone.’ His observation cuts to the heart of it. The human cost of this war has always been borne by soldiers and civilians in Ukraine. But the cultural cost is now being paid in St Petersburg, in the anxious faces of men who thought their wealth was a shield.
As the forum wraps up early, the delegates will return to their gated communities and their second passports. But they will do so with a new understanding: the war is no longer a spectator sport. It is a guest that has RSVP’d to every event, and it doesn’t care about your place in the seating plan.
