Though President Putin will be hosting the annual G8 meeting this July in Petersburg, Russia will still be very much the outsider among the eight participating countries.
Before the G8 came the G7 made up the USA, Canada, Britain, trance. Germany, Italy, and Japan - the world's most powerful imperialist countries.
The decision to invite Russia to join in 1998 under President Yeltsin though was more of a political than an economic decision
Accordingly as far as economics and economic policy is concerned the G8 remains the G7 at meetings of finance musters and cental bankers, to which Russia is not invited.
The collapse of the Soviet Union and subsequent capitalist restoration has had severe impacts on Russian society. Russia is one of the few countries in the world whose population has decreased in recent years, a trend that is likely to conLife expectally has declined largely due to the collapse of the once socialised health system; average male lite expectancy 1s now 6u
The birth rate has also declined. Economic dislocation and instability not to mennon paupersauon means that having children places a financial burden on many working class Russians that thev cannot attord.
This has led to Putin recently promising financial incentives to women who have more than two children.
Added to this an estimated 1.5 million Russians are HIV positive or just over one per cent of the population (about len limes lne percentage In Britain), opening up the possibility of an HIV epidemic in the country.
These are hardly positive factors for the development of Russia as a capitalist economy.
Currently Russia's major economic assets are its natural resources, principally oil and gas. It is estimated that Russia has about 25% of the world's gas reserves and currently supplies about 25% of Europe's gas.
In the context of increasing global demand for oil and gas this is likely to be Putin's main bargaining tool that he brings to this or any future G8 meeting.
All this forms the backdrop to Russia's hosting of the G8 summit. Capitalism may have been restored in the former Soviet Union but the other members of the G8 want to see even greater marketization of the Russian economy.
Much of Russia's natural resources remain state owned. The Russian gas industry for example is in the hands of Gazprom, a state owned company. Episodes such as the Power play: Putin bids for top-table status trial and imprisonment on dubious charges of billionaire Mikhail Khodorkovsky longstanding Putin opponent have also incurred the wrath of many western commentaLOIS.
They see this as the weakness of civil society in Russia. Though we should shed no tears for a bourgeois oppositionist like Khodorkovsky -opposition from the working class, or from oppressed national minorities such as the Chechens is not surprisingly treated
LUIC harshly.
Central issues of the St Petersburg summit are likely to include the issues of "non proliferation" and the "war on terror". Currently in the context of the Middle East this means the desire of the Bush
to effect a regime change in Iran.
The pretext has been Iran's intention use nuclear energy as a (real or imagined) precursor developing nuclear weapons. Russia's position in this is probably a ormore annoyalent
Though regime change in Iran is unlikely in the short term it is not impossible and Russia clearly does not want a US friendly regime there on its southern border.
As far as Palestine is concerned this also means the aesire OI US ana European powers to force the Palestinian people into a submission to Zionist expansionism.
But whilst the US and the EU have used the election of Hamas as a pretext for a financial embargo the Palestinian Authority the