Dragplåstren på Putins Davos: Tate, Seagal, Owens

The St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF; Russian: Петербургский международный экономический форум, ПМЭФ) is an annual Russian business event for the economic sector, which has been held in St. Petersburg since 1997, and under the auspices of the president of Russia since 2006. Each year, more than 10,000 people from over 120 different countries take part. The forum brings together the chief executives of major Russian and international companies, heads of state, political leaders, prime ministers, deputy prime ministers, departmental ministers, and governors. In December 2015 the SPIEF Foundation was renamed the Roscongress Foundation. The key purpose of the forum is to provide practical solutions for businesses and governments, helping to overcome the geographic and information barriers between Russia and other countries. The forum was historically intended for Russia to attract foreign direct investment, discuss economic policy and project a global image that Russia was open for business after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The SPIEF forum has often been described as the 'Russian Davos'; ie. the Russian analogue of the World Economic Forum that is usually held in Davos, Switzerland. Since the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, leading politicians and business executives from the Western world and their allies (included within the Unfriendly Countries List) were notably absent from SPIEF events, even as overall attendance rose at the forum, where Russia attracted non-Western nations' participation, with attendance up from 69 countries in 2022 to 75 countries in 2023, and the number of individual participants also increased from 14,000 people from 130 countries, with 81 countries sending official representatives in 2022 to more than 17,000 participants from 130 countries taking part in events, both offline and online formats, in 2023. Journalists from "unfriendly countries" were denied admittance. In response, SPIEF forums have adjusted their focus to highlight leading politicians and business executives from various countries such as the People's Republic of China, India, Turkey, Iran, Egypt, United Arab Emirates, Serbia, Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Cuba, Nicaragua and the Central African Republic. In addition, delegations from disputed polities such as the Taliban and the Donetsk People's Republic were among the notables present at the 2022 forum. At the 2025 forum, the line-up of the most prominent group of world leaders that Russia has attracted to the conference since the war began is Indonesia's President Prabowo Subianto, Chinese first-ranked vice-premier Ding Xuexiang, Sheikh Nasser bin Hamad Al Khalifa, the third in line to the throne of Bahrain, and South African deputy president Paul Mashatile.