Gang of 8 Becomes G-7

Seeking to isolate Russia, the United States and the world’s other leading economies moved to indefinitely cut Moscow out of G-8 meetings on Monday, including canceling an economic summit that President Vladimir Putin planned to host this summer in Russia.

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U.S. President Barack Obama huddled with the leaders of Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Canada and Japan for an emergency meeting of the G-7.

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[He] was expected to face resistance from some European officials. Russia is one of the European Union's largest trading partners, and officials fear that the still economically fragile continent could suffer if Moscow retaliates, particularly by curbing oil and gas supplies.

  alJazeera

I’m not really understanding what it is they want Putin to do. Crimeans voted to become a part of Russia. Do they want him to deny them? I haven’t even been able to ascertain whether it’s true that Russia has invaded Ukraine – or as this article puts it, they are warning Russia against escalating its “incursion” into Ukraine. But perhaps they are talking about Russian forces in Crimea when it was part of Ukraine?

At any rate, Russia isn’t claiming any concern about getting booted from the G-8.

"If our Western partners think that this format has outlived itself, then so be it," said Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

"At the very least, we are not trying to hold on to this format, and we see no great tragedy if it [the G-8] does not meet," he told reporters after holding concurrent talks with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Ukraine's interim Foreign Minister Andriy Deshchytsya on Monday.

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"So what we want to do is take the G-7 as a platform to coordinate the national actions that we're taking and then to work with our European partners as they formulate responses through the EU and European Council so that we have the strongest unified voice in imposing sanctions," said Ben Rhodes, U.S. deputy national security adviser for strategic communications, at Monday's press briefing.

"The more we coordinate the designation of individuals and entities and potentially sectors of the Russian economy, the more that's going to have an impact on Russia," he said.

That sound you just heard was the laughter of all of Cuba.

In another attempt to isolate Russia, Obama held a separate meeting Monday with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

I bet that went well.

In a counterpoint to Obama and the other G-7 leaders, a group of five major emerging economies — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — issued a statement Monday opposing sanctions and urging nations to work through the U.N. instead. The so-called BRICS nations said hostile language, sanctions and force do not "contribute to a sustainable and peaceful solution."

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Perhaps the confusion is only on the part of the alJazeera journalist. The Guardian has a little different nuance.

As Russian troops appeared to mass on Ukraine's eastern border, the G7 statement hinted at much broader sanctions if Russia made further expansionist moves.

"We remain ready to intensify actions including co-ordinated sectoral sanctions that will have an increasingly significant impact on the Russian economy, if Russia continues to escalate this situation," the statement said.

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The Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, shrugged off the loss of G8 membership as being inconsequential. "The G8 is an informal club, with no formal membership, so no one can be expelled from it. If our western partners believe that such format is no longer needed, so be it. We aren't clinging for that format and we won't see a big problem if there are no such meetings for a year, or a year-and-half," said Lavrov after his first meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart, Andrii Deshchytsia.

The Ukrainian embassy in The Hague said in its account of the meeting: "Lavrov stressed that Russia has no intention of using military force in the eastern and southern regions of Ukraine. The two sides agreed to hold emergency consultations at the level of the ministries of foreign affairs and the ministries of defence of both countries in the case of exacerbation of the situation."

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Leaders from the US, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Canada and Japan met in The Hague as the G7 for the first time since Russian was brought into the group in 1998 to seal east-west co-operation and lay the cold war to rest.

  Guardian

So is this their way of telling us that the cold war is back on again?

As for the Chinese leader’s response:

US officials acknowledged that Xi had given little by way of formal response to the request, but the Chinese leader appeared to go out of his way to emphasise a warm and personal relationship with Barack Obama, heaping praise on the US president's wife and daughters who have just visited China and jokingly conveyed Michelle Obama's greetings to her husband.

”Let’s not talk about it.”