The Kremlin backed U.S. President Donald Trump's claim that Russia’s expulsion from the G8 in 2014 was a mistake but dismissed the relevance of the current G7, calling it “rather useless.”

Trump, speaking at the G7 summit in Canada, claimed that if Russia had remained in the G8, the 2022 war in Ukraine might not have occurred, emphasizing that President Vladimir Putin no longer engages with those who ousted him.

"Barack Obama and a person named (Justin) Trudeau didn't want to have Russia in and I would say that that was a mistake because I think you wouldn't have a war right now if you had Russia in. And you wouldn't have a war right now if Trump were president four years ago," explained Trump.

The U.S. President added, "They threw Russia out, which I claimed was a very big mistake, even though I wasn't in politics then, I was very loud about it. It was a mistake in that you spend so much time talking about Russia and he's no longer at the table. So it makes life more complicated but you wouldn't have had the war."

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov responded by saying, “We agree with President Trump: it was a big mistake to exclude Russia from the G8 format.”

However, Peskov added that the G7 no longer holds practical relevance for Moscow, pointing to the group’s diminishing role in the global economy and contrasting it with broader formats such as the G20. He said the G7 has lost relevance in the current geopolitical context.

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