Safe and Smart: Small Gubkinsky Is Outpacing Much Larger Cities in AI-Powered Public Safety
Gubkinsky, a small but fast-growing city in Russia's Yamal region, has upgraded its Safe City municipal platform. By integrating artificial intelligence into its surveillance network, the city's cameras now do far more than record video – they detect hazards, analyze situations, and help anticipate potential threats.
AI algorithms integrated into the city's video surveillance network can detect smoke, fires, and potentially dangerous unattended objects in public spaces.
A City That Thinks
The system analyzes video streams in real time, identifying visual signs of fire, including smoke, flames, sparks, and even smoldering. The algorithms can also distinguish between a backpack that has genuinely been abandoned and a bag briefly placed on a bench while its owner steps away. The AI evaluates how long an object remains separated from the person associated with it before classifying it as suspicious. The greatest advantage of this smart system is speed. Before eyewitnesses have time to call the fire department, the AI can already transmit the location of a potential fire. Likewise, unattended items at bus stops or aboard public transport no longer have to wait hours for bomb disposal teams before being assessed – the system rapidly classifies the level of risk.
The city operates 538 surveillance cameras, including 119 equipped with advanced video analytics for incident detection, public safety monitoring, and facial recognition. Gubkinsky is helping build Yamal's next generation of smart public safety infrastructure. Computer vision technologies are no longer limited to Russia's largest metropolitan areas and are increasingly being deployed in small and mid-sized cities.
And Looks Ahead
In 2025, Gubkinsky installed four AI-powered safety systems at pedestrian crossings. Video analytics will soon begin automatically detecting traffic accidents, crowd formations, acts of vandalism, and failures in municipal utility infrastructure. Cameras will also identify overflowing waste containers and illegal dumping. That approach allows Gubkinsky to improve the effectiveness of public safety services without increasing the number of monitoring staff. Instead of watching hundreds of video feeds simultaneously, operators can focus on supervision and decision-making while AI takes over routine monitoring. Notably, the smart video analytics platform used by the Safe City system is being developed by Russian technology companies.
By the end of 2026, more than 2,500 AI-enabled cameras are expected to operate across the Yamal region. Today, nearly 2,000 of the 6,700 devices connected to the unified surveillance network already incorporate AI modules. Regional authorities plan to expand the network to 10,000 cameras.
Making Everyday Life Safer
Yamal's unified video surveillance system was launched five years ago. In 2023, every airport and railway station in the region was equipped with cameras capable of situational analysis and facial recognition.
“This delivers measurable results. Police have recorded a twofold decline in crimes committed in public places. The widespread deployment of surveillance cameras has helped solve hundreds of criminal offenses,” said Yamal Governor Dmitry Artyukhov.
Technology for detecting unattended objects in public spaces, similar to the system used in Gubkinsky, is already operating in Moscow. There, AI has helped reduce robberies by a factor of 10.5 and residential burglaries by a factor of 34.5. In the Moscow region, cameras monitor courtyard cleanliness and help combat graffiti. In the Novosibirsk region, AI assisted in apprehending 2,800 offenders during 2025, representing a 60% increase over 2024. The technology is also being used to help locate missing children.
Russia continues expanding a nationwide network of cameras that can both "see" and "think." Such systems inevitably raise questions about privacy and the protection of personal data. At the same time, they are designed with security safeguards in mind, and access to the information is restricted to authorized emergency and law enforcement services. The ultimate goal of the technology is to make everyday life safer and more comfortable for citizens.
