The St Petersburg International Economic Forum was meant to be a gilded stage for Russia to project resilience. Instead, it became a theatre of the absurd: a drone strike on the city’s outskirts punctuated speeches about sovereignty and self-sufficiency. One must admire the Kremlin’s capacity for cognitive dissonance.
As British sanctions slowly constrict the arteries of Russian finance, the forum’s panellists debated digital currencies and import substitution while the hum of UAVs served as a literal reminder that the empire is under siege from within and without. The parallels to late-stage Byzantium are almost too neat—except that Byzantium at least had the decency to fall with a modicum of dignity. Here, we have a regime that insists on hosting a party while the roof burns.
The drone strike is not merely a tactical nuisance; it is a symbol of Russia’s inability to protect its own heartland. The economic forum, once a beacon of integration, now reeks of provincial parochialism. The sanctions bite, the drones fly, and the elites pretend that a new world order is emerging.
In truth, it is the old order crumbling, one sanctioned oligarch at a time.
