The annual worldwide financial discussion board opening within the Russian metropolis of St. Petersburg on Wednesday has lengthy been the nation’s premier occasion for attracting Western traders, and, at first look, the agenda this yr appears to point that the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine modified little.

Planned panel topics include “Russia as a Global Tech Hub” and “The Arctic: Territory of Investment Opportunities and Vivid Travel,” whereas the phrase “war” by no means seems — even when euphemisms crop up repeatedly, such because the “evolving circumstances” or the “military-political crisis in Europe.”

The actual clue that the struggle and its accompanying Western financial sanctions have remodeled the state-run St. Petersburg International Economic Forum right into a shadow of its former self is the scant worldwide presence. Significant buying and selling companions like China and India are dispatching representatives, as are a small variety of different Asian, Middle Eastern, African and Latin American mates.

Yet the world, for essentially the most half, and the Western world specifically, is staying away. The discussion board, first held in 1997, was meant to current Russia’s “modern, technologically advanced face to the West,” mentioned Yevgeny Nadorshin, the chief economist at PF Capital, a small Moscow consulting agency. “The idea behind the forum has significantly deteriorated because most of the potential Western investors who could have come now have no reason to come.”

Ever since the West imposed some of the strictest economic sanctions in historical past on Russia in response to its February 2022 invasion of neighboring Ukraine, President Vladimir V. Putin has tried to reassure his nation that it may well maintain its economic system by pivoting to Asia.

Long gone are the times when President Emmanuel Macron of France confirmed up with Mr. Putin, or when Russian oligarchs sponsored events on the sidelines with free-flowing Champagne and leggy fashions the place executives from high Western oil firms hobnobbed with ministers.

Some of Russia’s die-hard Western mates are anticipated to look, like Karin Kneissl, a former Austrian overseas minister who danced with Mr. Putin at her marriage ceremony, or Matthias Moosdorf, a, far-right member of the German Parliament. They are scheduled to sit down on a panel centered on promoting Russia’s narrative overseas of a declining Western affect.

The United Arab Emirates agreed to function this yr’s honored visitor, an annual custom. A high-level official is predicted to look with Mr. Putin on the most important session prone to occur on Friday, though the U.A.E. has but to verify who will probably be. Those invited to attend must be examined for the coronavirus.

Dmitri S. Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesman, advised that Russia was not publicizing the names of all of the Westerners attending as a result of they’d be “eaten alive” again dwelling, and that Russia had denied credentials to some reporters from what it calls “unfriendly countries.”

Given crumbling ties with the West, holding the discussion board albeit largely with Russians, is taken into account a part of the Kremlin’s technique of maintaining the struggle within the background.

“The very fact of holding the forum is an attempt to signal to the population that Russia is still conducting business as usual, which is all an illusion, of course,” mentioned Cliff Kupchan, the chairman of the Eurasia Group, a danger evaluation agency.

The agenda consists of discussions about sure pet initiatives of Mr. Putin’s, like attempting to exchange the greenback as the principle forex of worldwide commerce, and the idea of “technological sovereignty,” that means casting off dependence on the West.

There are no less than hints at Russia’s modified circumstances, together with a dialogue about the truth that the nation has been banned from quite a few worldwide sports activities competitions, which the agenda refers to because the “reform of the competition calendar.” In what appears to be a uncommon reasonable nod to the struggle, one panel will focus on how Russian troopers injured within the preventing might be built-in again into common lives.