This spring abounds with international political events. One of them is Russia’s elimination from the G8 elite club. However, such a high-profile vacancy is never empty. Meanwhile, China aspires to replace Russia at the round table. Indeed, the current group of 7 highly developed nations has already considered China’s membership at an emergency meeting. After almost 20 years of the fruitful cooperation, the group of the wealthiest countries resumed the previous membership when the West used to stand against the Soviet Union. So, the G7 members share the opinion that Russia sticks to different values. “The fact is that Russia as a state took special responsibility for the security of Ukraine's territorial integrity and is now violating this territorial integrity in such a manner is definitely a bad example on an international level and I hope it won't set an example. But the danger exists," Angela Merkel highlighted. The political leaders cancelled the regular G8 summit scheduled in the Russian city of Sochi. However, the Kremlin still hopes that the forum might go back to the long-standing format. “As an experiment, we might see how we can handle without it for a year or year and half,” Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov commented on the G7’s decision. A lot of political experts agree with the Russian high-ranking official. They are certain that the elite club will revert to the established G8 format indeed, but this time China will become its member instead of Russia. In the meantime, after Russia had been excluded from the forum, the G7 policymakers developed the third package of sanctions which will concern Russia’s economy. The sanctions will affect primarily the energetic and financial sectors, foreign commerce, and foreign defense orders. "Highly undiversified economy, like the Russian economy, which is so much oil and gas-dependent, which has not invested in infrastructure, invested in other areas of its economy – it will be worried if there is a risk in the financial sector, or in weapons, or in trade, or indeed in energy. There could be potential sanctions; it will hurt them," Mark Rutte, the Prime Minister of the Netherlands stated. “And as I said earlier, we have to design them (sanctions) in such a way that they will particularly hit Russia and not Europe, the U.S., Canada, or Japan." Importantly, Europe has been the main consumer of the Russian natural gas.
