Steven Seagal and a ‘phantom’ Trump delegation: Putin showcases his soft power in St. Petersburg

Many years ago, the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum hosted world leaders such as Angela Merkel, Xi Jinping, Emmanuel Macron, and José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 changed everything. The Kremlin’s flagship business event is now a pale imitation of what it once was. This year, its main attractions have been a philosopher of Russian ultranationalism, Donald Trump’s chair of the Commission of Fine Arts, and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

That loss of prestige, however, does not mean Russia is isolated: business is still being done behind the scenes. Just a few miles from the forum venue, at the headquarters of the Kremlin‑controlled gas giant Gazprom, a delegation from the far‑right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party was demonstrating its loyalty to Moscow on Wednesday.

“The focus of the in-depth discussion at Gazprom headquarters was the possibility of restarting the Nord Stream pipelines and resuming Russian gas supplies [to Germany],” the party’s foreign‑policy spokesman, Markus Frohnmaier, wrote on X. “All options must be put back on the table [...] Our task is to uncompromisingly place German national interests at the center,” he added in the post, which included a photo of him shaking hands with Gazprom chief Alexei Miller.

Frohnmaier also used his trip to meet with one of Russia’s chief negotiators with the United States on Ukraine, Kirill Dmitriev — a businessman and close friend of the Putin family. “We look forward to building a GREAT FUTURE together with AfD, Germany’s most popular party,” the Russian politician wrote on social media. The alignment is complete.

Frohnmaier used the trip to meet one of Russia’s chief negotiators with the United States on Ukraine, Kirill Dmitriev, a businessman close to the Putin family. “Looking forward to building a great FUTURE together with AfD, Germany’s most popular party,” the Russian politician shared on X.

Putin “welcomed” political forces like AfD in a parallel meeting with major international news agencies, where he also dangled before German authorities the idea that he could restore gas supplies through Nord Stream “tomorrow” if they were to yield. In that press conference, the Russian president also hinted that he is considering using his ballistic missiles against Ukraine “even in urban areas,” and threatened to intensify strikes on Kyiv.

“Russia has an air defense system, we need to improve it, strengthen it,” said Putin, adding that Ukraine does not have these systems.

For three decades, the Kremlin has used gas supplies as a weapon to pressure the European Union, Ukraine, Armenia, Moldova, and other neighboring countries that depend on it. In 2022, shortly before the explosion that destroyed the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, Russia cut most of its gas shipments to Europe in retaliation for its support for Kyiv. Germany — initially reluctant to back Ukraine until the invasion — imported one‑third of its oil and half of its gas from Russia.

Under the shadow of crisis

The meeting between the Kremlin’s gas arm and AfD took place on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg Economic Forum, where virtually the entire Russian business elite has gathered in recent days. Business sources told this newspaper that the event has declined significantly because no foreign company wants to draw attention to its dealings. Even so, contacts continue outside the official pavilions. “Russia has never been completely isolated,” they add.

The forum opened on Wednesday with a huge column of smoke on the horizon, the result of a massive Ukrainian attack on the region. Another storm — the economic crisis — made itself felt at the event when Russia’s central bank governor, Elvira Nabiullina, pulled out at the last minute citing health reasons.

Nabiullina, who has criticized the overheating of the economy caused by enormous military spending, had been scheduled to debate with Finance Minister Anton Siluanov. “Taxes have gone up, and there was a risk that we might have gone too far in some areas. No, we haven’t,” the official in charge of Russia’s economic policy insisted.

The central bank head, who had criticized the overheating of the economy due to huge military spending, was due to debate with Finance Minister Anton Siluanov. “Taxes have been raised and there was a risk that we might have overreached in some respect. No, we have not,” said the finance minister.

Businesspeople see it differently. “The economy is doing terribly. The tax increases are strangling us this year,” said an executive at a popular e-commerce platform in conversation with this newspaper. The government enacted a massive tax hike at the start of the year, which, combined with high interest rates, is stifling consumption.

“They’re trying to collect revenue from everywhere. Previously we benefited from not paying indirect taxes through parallel imports [the Kremlin’s de facto legalization of smuggling foreign goods to evade sanctions], but now they check all imports at the border,” said the executive.

Empty promises

Putin’s special envoy for negotiations with the United States, businessman Kirill Dmitriev, tried to make a splash with an announcement that sounded like little more than an empty promise. He claimed that Rodney Mims Cook Jr., the U.S. delegate to the Commission of Fine Arts, is supposedly set to sign an agreement on Friday to continue designing a tunnel linking Alaska and Chukotka — a project Washington and Moscow have discussed since the last century and that has never materialized.

Dmitriev had little else to offer beyond optimism. The envoy mentioned that the two powers could pursue joint ventures in energy and artificial intelligence, but their talks have not resolved even the mutual restrictions on their embassies. Even though Trump arrived at the White House a year and a half ago, Dmitriev blamed his predecessor, Joe Biden, for leaving relations “in a very difficult place.” According to his figures, around 300 U.S. companies are currently operating in Russia.

No big names

This year’s St. Petersburg Forum is devoid of big names. The star of the opening day was ultranationalist philosopher Alexander Dugin, who sketched out three scenarios: the positive one — from the Kremlin’s perspective — envisioned the occupation of Ukraine and the collapse of the European Union before 2036; the negative one, a loss of influence in former Soviet territories; the inertial one, a nuclear war if the battle against Kyiv remains bogged down.

Putin had expected greater concessions from Trump when he came to power last year, but the U.S. president has lifted only a handful of sanctions on Russian oil — and only temporarily — to prevent the market from collapsing amid his war with Iran. In fact, negotiations between the United States and Russia on their bilateral relations and on Ukraine are completely frozen. That is why the participation in the forum of Trump’s chair of the Commission of Fine Arts, Rodney Mims Cook Jr., generated enormous anticipation among Russians.

The designer steered clear of controversy and limited himself to showing a gallery of family photos from previous trips to Russia, along with a few architectural projects in the United States and his dacha (country house) there. The presentation was so dull that few people noticed Cook had shared an old photograph of himself visiting the Soros Foundation in Moscow — an organization that Russian propaganda, and much of the Western far right, routinely blames for every geopolitical disaster since the fall of the USSR. The Kremlin has in fact declared the NGO “undesirable,” and interacting with it is a criminal offense.

Despite contributing nothing of substance, Cook’s participation in the forum sparked controversy. Washington denied having sent any delegation to the event. “I’m not aware of any delegation being sent there,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Thursday. “I know about the event, I know they are holding it, but I don’t think it would have been a high-level official,” the U.S. diplomat stressed.

In any case, Cook’s presence gave the Kremlin an opportunity to try to revive its outreach to Washington and to call for the lifting of the ban on its artists. “Until recently, our cultural figures promoted numerous projects in all fields — musicians’ tours, cooperation in architecture and the preservation of cultural monuments. I trust that reviving cultural exchanges will remain our goal, as long as the relationship is reciprocal,” said Russia’s culture minister, Olga Lyubimova, urging Washington to thaw contacts through these exchanges.

“Culture helps us get to know one another, to see each other’s values. Our children don’t have that opportunity today. U.S. artists do not come to Russia, nor do Russians to the United States,” said Svetlana Chupsheva, director of the Kremlin’s Center for Strategic Initiatives. “We ban books and films [from other countries]. It is a catastrophe because future generations will not understand one another,” she stressed, without mentioning the severe censorship that affects Russian artists who do not support the Kremlin and its invasion of Ukraine.

Cook shared a panel with U.S. actor Steven Seagal, star of Under Siege and Die Hard, who, from his self-imposed exile in Russia, claims that “Movies in Hollywood in the last five or six years” have gone “down.” “I got a notice even saying, every movie that you do, you should have people in the movie in starring roles that would be, for example, sexually liberated in different ways,” said Seagal, who claimed that the note warned that if this was not done, “our films would not be able to put up, for example, the Academy Awards.”

He did not mention at any point that the entire Russian film industry is subject to the Kremlin and that its laws even prohibit portraying women who do not want to be mothers.

Another speaker at the forum was Russian-U.S. businessman David Geovanis, whom U.S. prosecutor Robert Mueller accused of gathering compromising information about Trump by organizing parties in Moscow when the tycoon visited the country in 1996 to scout a site for one of his towers.

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