Steven Seagal Draws Attention at St Petersburg Forum
steven seagal is among the attendees as the St Petersburg International Economic Forum opens on Wednesday with Ukrainian drone strikes still hanging over the city. About 20,000 guests from more than 130 countries are expected at the three-day event, even as the airport briefly felt the effect of attacks on energy facilities near St Petersburg.
St Petersburg Airport Disruption
Ukrainian drones struck energy facilities in and around St Petersburg hours before delegates arrived, roughly 16km from the forum venue. The attacks temporarily disrupted operations at St Petersburg’s airport, a reminder that the forum is proceeding inside the war’s reach rather than outside it.
The conference is still moving ahead as planned. That keeps the city’s main business showcase open, but it also places an unusual guest list under a security and political shadow that would have been hard to imagine when the forum first opened.
From 1997 to Today
The first SPIEF was held in June 1997, when it was designed to attract investors and present Russia as open for business after the collapse of the Soviet Union. It has since become a platform for Moscow to present its vision of the global order and cultivate political ties abroad.
This year’s sessions run from energy markets and artificial intelligence to information warfare and media influence, including a panel titled “Your Words are Like Bullets: How Information Has Transformed into the Most Powerful Weapon of the Modern Era.” The mix tells you what the forum has become: part investment pitch, part political theater.
Rodney Mims Cook Jr at SPIEF
President Donald Trump has appointed Rodney Mims Cook Jr as his representative at the event, and he is expected to participate in a session titled “Russia-USA: A Cultural Dialogue”. The American Chamber of Commerce in Russia and the Roscongress Foundation are organizing a business forum focused on potential cooperation between Russian and US companies.
Kremlin foreign policy aide Yury Ushakov said Uzbekistan President Shavkat Mirziyoyev, Tanzania President Samia Suluhu Hassan, and China Vice President Han Zheng are expected to attend. Han is expected to meet separately with Vladimir Putin on June 6, while Saudi Arabia is SPIEF’s guest country this year and is sending Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman Al Saud.
Alongside Gerhard Schroder, Seagal gives the forum a deliberately provocative edge. That is the point of SPIEF now: Russia still wants foreign names on stage, even as Western governments and many multinational companies have pulled back since 2022.
