The organizers of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) in 2023 included in the list of participants foreign guests who did not confirm their intention to come to the event or did not receive an invitation at all . On this subject writing The Financial Times (FT) in reference to the draft SPIEF programme.
According to the newspaper, forum participants include former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, Lucid Motors CEO Peter Rawlinson, Stanford University professor Ilya Strebulaev, British scientist Stephen Wolfram, American intelligence researcher artificial Eliezer Yudkowsky and former US Undersecretary. for business veteran Sloan Gibson.
An FT source familiar with the matter said Schmidt had not received an invitation to SPIEF and was not going to attend the event. The publication notes that his presence at the forum would be “a very unusual step”, since in 2022 Schmidt met with senior aides to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kiev and expressed his support for the country.
Strebulaev said he knew nothing of the Kremlin’s plans to invite him to SPIEF. Yudkovsky confirmed to the FT that he had received an invitation to the forum, but did not respond. Wolfram’s representative said the scientist was invited to SPIEF, but was not going to attend. A spokesperson for Rawlinson said he had not heard of the event and wanted nothing to do with it. Gibson FT could not be reached for comment.
“The lack of confirmed Western names <…> indicates that the Kremlin is struggling to find people to communicate with its elite,” the newspaper wrote.
According to the publication, the SPIEF guest list is dominated by high-ranking representatives from the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, India and China. Moreover, there are no foreign officials in the program with a rank higher than that of a minister, even from countries that Russia considers “friendly”, with the exception of the first lady of Burundi.
The SPIEF will be held from July 14 to 17. Its central theme is: “Sovereign development is the foundation of a just world. Let us join forces for the good of future generations.” Press secretary of Russian President Dmitry Peskov in mid-April informed that many representatives of companies from “hostile countries” are interested in SPIEF, but the Kremlin will not name them yet, because “they will simply be eaten alive”.
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