Putin steals the show at G7 even without being invited

(From left to right) Italy’s Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper, US President Barack Obama, European Council President Herman Van Rompuy, Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel, Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, France’s President Francois Hollande, Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe pose for a group photo during a G7 leaders meeting at European Council headquarters in Brussels yesterday.

By Alexandra Mayer-Hohdahl/DPA/Brussels

The talks between Group of Seven (G7) leaders this week were meant to be a demonstrative rebuke of Russia - the first time in 16 years that the giant was not sitting at a summit table with the world’s leading industrial nations.

And yet, Russian President Vladimir Putin still got to say his piece, making headlines with an interview in which he waved away accusations that Moscow is fomenting unrest in Ukraine - and mocked the US along the way.

“We did not cause this crisis to happen,” he said in the interview with the French broadcasters Europe 1 and TF1, which was recorded on Tuesday in Russia, but aired a day later - just as G7 leaders sat down for dinner in Brussels.

“We will not promote Russian nationalism, and we do not intend to revive the Russian Empire,” he added.

Moscow and the international community have been locked in a geopolitical arm-wrestle for months, ever since Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych fled his former Soviet nation amid mass protests over his reluctance to seek closer ties with the European Union.

Wednesday marked an occasion for the two sides to again draw lines in the sand, hours before Putin was to come face-to-face with many of the G7 leaders at World War II commemorations in France.

“In the face of unacceptable interference in Ukraine’s sovereign affairs by the Russian Federation, we stand by the Ukrainian government and people,” the G7 leaders of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the US said in a statement yesterday.

“Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea and actions to de-stabilise eastern Ukraine are unacceptable and must stop,” they added. “We are united in condemning the Russian Federation’s continuing violation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine.”

Putin, on the other hand, accused Russia’s European and US “friends” of supporting an “anti-constitutional armed coup” in Ukraine.

He dismissed US allegations that Russia has a hand in the country, by pointing to now-disproved Washington claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

“The entire world remembers the US secretary of state demonstrating the evidence ... waving around some test tube with washing powder in the UN Security Council,” Putin said in the interview. “There are no armed forces, no Russian ‘instructors’ in south-eastern Ukraine.”

He also took a swing at former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton. When asked about her reported comparison between his policy on Ukraine to Adolf Hitler’s in the 1930s, Putin answered that she “has never been too graceful in her statements.”

“When people push boundaries too far, it’s not because they are strong but because they are weak. But maybe weakness is not the worst quality for a woman,” he shot back.

But Putin also sometimes struck a conciliatory tone, indicating for instance that he would not be opposed to meeting Ukraine’s newly elected president, Petro Poroshenko, at the commemorations in France.

The demands laid out by the G7 in Brussels included a call for Russia to “recognise” the election’s result.

“I don’t plan to evade anyone,” Putin said of his upcoming visits to Paris and Normandy. “There will be other guests, and I’m not going to avoid any of them. I will talk with all of them.”

Putin is expected to hold talks with French President Francois Hollande and British Prime Minister David Cameron in Paris on Thursday night, while a meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel is due to follow on today.

Hollande said in Brussels that the meetings would be used to drive home the messages of the G7, insisting that the group was united, “speaking with one voice, expressing the same principles.”

The US has, however, been considered more assertive in the Ukrainian crisis than its European partners - many of which have strong business or energy ties to Russia.

The relationship between Washington and Europe had been strained in February, when US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland could infamously be heard saying “fuck the EU” in a leaked phone conversation about diplomatic efforts in Ukraine.

But any differences between the G7 nations were kept well hidden from public view in Brussels.

“Our free nations will stand united so that further Russian provocations will only mean more isolation and costs for Russia,” US President Barack Obama said during a visit to Poland that preceded the G7 talks.

“Bigger nations must not be allowed to bully the small, or impose their will at the barrel of a gun,” he added. “Our free nations cannot be complacent in pursuit of the vision we share - a Europe that is whole and free and at peace.”