Instead, President Putin diverted his attention to the G20 – a much wider group of countries which includes emerging economies such as Brazil and Mexico.
According to the Kremlin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, Russia’s involvement in the G8 was “not being discussed in Moscow in any way”.
Russia was originally admitted to the group in 1998, transforming it from the G7 to the G8.
However, following Moscow’s exit, members now consist of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, UK and US.
