Seven British

The meeting of the leaders of the Group of Seven, which will be held this weekend in the UK, in the resort town of Carbis Bay on the Atlantic coast of the Cornwall peninsula, has all the chances for three whole days to bring out of its lethargic sleep the club of world gentlemen, often mistakenly called in our country “The Big seven ".

And for seven years now it has existed in the form of a "seven", not a "eight" - without Russia being excluded from it.

Opening the diplomatic marathon of the collective West, which will also include NATO and US-EU summits in Brussels before crossing the finish line at the meeting of Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin in Geneva, the G7 summit in Carbis Bay will not get bored with politicians, experts and the press.

And this despite the fact that the annual meetings of the G7 (only last year the summit did not take place because of the pandemic) has long been boring and forced to remember an old anecdote about a decrepit playboy who came to his mistress, but forgot why.

Why will the G7 summit in Carbis Bay be special?

It's not about the army of police that flooded the resort town on the Cornwall peninsula, to help which units of the British Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, as well as the Guardsmen of the Coldstream Regiment were deployed (let's leave these touching details to The Guardian and The Times).

The point is in the very concept of the summit, in its idea.

While no one will admit it, this entire G7 summit is really, if you think about it, not about the G7 at all.

It is about something completely different, about the UK presidency of the "Group of Seven", after the end of a painful divorce from the European Union, claiming the role of a new world center of power within the framework of the new strategy of Global Britain ("global Britain") being implemented by the government of Boris Johnson.

Taking advantage of the host's right to determine the agenda of the meeting, London is trying to turn the "seven" of the 2021 model into a kind of "seven-British".

Namely - to present the Western world not so much as American-centric, but as equal to that very great British Empire, "over which the sun never sets."

Including it does not go into the XXI century.

This is the essence of the new global British-centricity, as it is understood in London.

Shortly before the G7 summit in the United Kingdom, an almost unnoticed event in Russia took place that explains a lot.

From the Portsmouth naval base, an international carrier strike group headed by the flagship of the British fleet, its pride - the aircraft carrier Queen Elizabeth, set off on a seven-month round the world cruise.

Queen Elizabeth is accompanied by an Astute-class nuclear submarine, the US Navy destroyer Sullivans, the Evertsen air defense frigate of the Netherlands Navy and six more British warships.

The aircraft carrier group will visit more than 40 countries and take part in more than 70 events, including together with the French aircraft carrier Charles De Gaulle in the Mediterranean Sea.

Several ships will also enter the Black Sea.

It is symbolic that the 95-year-old Queen Elizabeth II personally blessed the sailors before the long voyage, specially delivered by helicopter on board Queen Elizabeth.

As Defense Secretary Ben Wallace said at the time, the carrier strike team “will write the next chapter in the history of a truly global Britain, which comes to the fore to meet tomorrow's challenges, working closely with its friends to defend shared values ​​and maintain international order. rule-based ”.

If, in preparation for the G7 summit in the United States that did not take place last year, his unfortunate host Donald Trump tried to hint at the possibility of inviting Vladimir Putin to a meeting, which caused a slight panic in the ranks of the Western allies, then its current host is British Prime Minister Boris Johnson - goes the opposite way.

Making it clear in every possible way that the unity of the United States and its Western allies, shaken under Donald Trump, will soon be restored, and this will be done by “global Britain” at the G7 summit in Carbis Bay, London chose the idea of ​​collective containment of Russia as one of the tools for the new consolidation of the West.

While on the eve of the Russian-American summit in Geneva, Washington avoids drastic steps in relations with Moscow and is even trying to reduce the degree of conflict in some way, resigning itself to the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline as an inevitable reality, London, on the contrary, is only inflamed ...

As a result, as of today, it is Britain that has every reason to claim the role of the main "evil investigator" in relation to Russia, the most toxic state in the world for Moscow.

Even more toxic than the States.

It is impossible not to notice that the holding of the G7 summit in the state that takes the most irreconcilable position in relation to Russia has determined the agenda of the meeting.

Thus, at a meeting of the foreign ministers of the "group of seven" held in May, London called for the opening of another front of the war with Russia - the information front.

How?

By creating collective mechanisms to contain Russian "propaganda and disinformation".

“When we see these lies and propaganda or fake news spreading, we no longer have to counter it alone.

It is necessary to unite and protect open societies, ”Dominik Raab, head of the Foreign Office, appealed to the allies at the G7 ministerial meeting.

After the meeting in London, he called on the G7 to contain Moscow in cyberspace.

“Hostile states and criminal groups want to undermine the foundations of our society and democracy.

Let's put it bluntly: countries like Russia have a duty to prosecute criminals who operate from their territory, not cover them up, ”Dominik Raab said at a conference at the National Cybersecurity Center.

Apparently, such initiatives of "global Britain" are intended to become a new means of consolidation of the G7, to help its members forget, like a nightmare, Donald Trump's proposal to invite Vladimir Putin to the G7.

At the same time, Queen Elizabeth's round-the-world tour of the international carrier strike group demonstrates that the military is playing a growing role in the implementation of the new British strategy.

“This role will be associated, on the one hand, with the containment of Russia in the North Atlantic and Arctic and, on the other hand, with more active support for the Indo-Pacific policy of the United States. In this way, Great Britain expects to restore its importance as an ally of the United States, which has fallen after leaving the EU, as well as to increase the level of its participation in Asian politics. In this regard, the British stepped up the activities of their fleet in the Arctic and at the same time sent a large formation consisting of an aircraft carrier, two destroyers, two frigates and a nuclear submarine to the Pacific Ocean, ”said Vasily Kashin, Deputy Director of the Center for Comprehensive European and International Studies at the Higher School of Economics.

“Instead of developing a dialogue, Great Britain goes into open confrontation with Russia. This is very sad for us. We confess that we cannot find any rational explanation for this, in our opinion, short-sighted policy. It's sad, but it's not our choice, ”SVR director Sergei Naryshkin said in a recent interview with the BBC.

As a cherry on the poisoned British cake, how not to recall the words of Boris Johnson himself, said by him in December 2017 at a press conference in Moscow following negotiations with Sergei Lavrov (then the eccentric British politician was not yet prime minister, but headed the Foreign Office): Let me declare that I am a Russophile, and a convinced Russophile.

I have ancestors in Moscow.

I am convinced that I am the first British Foreign Secretary, whose name is Boris, and please do not doubt that I want to achieve an improvement in our relationship. "

What is it - shocking, British humor, when one gentleman says to another what others do not understand?

Or is it such trolling?

Downright "convinced Russophile."

But where did it go, is this your "convinced Russophilia" in the era of "global seven-Britishism"?

Ancestors in Moscow turn over in a coffin.

The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.