Problems rarely come alone for worried minds. A natural disaster becomes a backdrop for another fear, even if a helicopter flight is involved. In this peculiar moment, such a person might think, “The next drone attack will fall on me.” Or, “I will drown in a heavy downpour when city drainage fails once more.” Perhaps, if I drive, I will crash into the Kremlin wall, die in a natural way, and guards will fire a few shots just in case. A few machine guns on a lifeless body, the torpedoes of a hidden submarine waiting somewhere near Serebryany Bor.
To some, this mental stream seems absurd, yet many people actually inhabit a version of reality like this. From the outside, it is hard to tell them apart from ordinary Russians who are grappling with problems and news.
The number of mentally unstable individuals has risen over the past three decades, with estimates hovering around six million. In parallel, the ranks of nonprofessional counselors who cannot adequately meet client needs are growing too.
Rosstat reports about 200,000 certified psychologists today, yet only a small fraction can effectively assist those who feel restlessness. A competent psychologist might relieve anxiety within ten sessions at most, often two or three. If progress stalls, clients are referred to psychiatrists or psychotherapists.
After drone incidents in Moscow and other cities, demand surged among those who feared being bombarded. An anxious individual often pursues a personal goal of arousal in their own way. For many, this becomes a serious problem. Yet the assistance offered by early-career “psychologists” resembles a children’s horror game at times: “Think of something good,” “Weigh the odds of a drone crash against a car accident,” “Tell yourself everything will be fine.”
These tips can support someone with steady mental health and even those with deeper issues, though longer treatment may be necessary if fear of death or disability runs high. For some, contemplating death is a way to test pride, and the real concern is a triggering event. Fear mixed with egocentrism can fuel this dynamic.
Most people know someone who often experiences rare ailments, unusual situations, or encounters “very strange people.” Such characters can push a healthy person toward apathy in moments. When fear takes hold, self-focus can mislead them into dangerous patterns. They may ignore obvious fears about common events. For instance, a winter injury might be shrugged off, while they fixate on teleporting from a 5G tower, escaping imagined helicopters, or fighting aliens—driven by personal beliefs. If a person believes in “men in black,” they may act on it, balancing real life debt with a vivid inner world where every street buzz is monitored and reported to authorities for a drone overhead.
In recent months, hundreds of thousands of reports have been received by security services about drones that turned out to be birds, night-sky shapes, or mere hallucinations. This suggests that a psychological battle has shifted in a way that sparks public anxiety and political unrest.
National television channels strive to reassure, explaining that drones pose less danger than stray dogs in some districts or that dangerous individuals exist beyond headlines. Yet local authorities continue to ease fears as best they can. For decades, rumors about reptiles, secret weapons, or alien conspiracies with powerful elites have circulated. It is not difficult to rattle the psyche of someone who ingests such stories. The pandemic-era surge in conspiracy theories and sensational scripts demonstrated how quickly fear can spread, with masks disappearing from shelves even as risks persisted.
Throughout history, humanity has built amazing things—from horse-drawn carriages to artificial intelligence. The reality that random events can interrupt anyone’s life remains undeniable, and no one is immune to it.
A person who fears drones is often a product of despair fed by sensational media and vivid cinema. Such people grow up with a sense of dire danger and seek to embody it in daily life. They feel that something bad always happens to them, making them attractive targets not only for drones but also for foreign intelligence interests.
These perspectives reflect a mix of personal experience and media influence, rather than an objective reality. The content here presents a viewpoint that some readers may dispute, and the material aims to explore how fear, media narratives, and social context intertwine in shaping public perception.