Russia’s G8 presidency is being dominated by foreign fears that President Vladimir Putin is wielding his nation’s energy resources to reclaim the superpower status lost with the collapse of the Soviet Union. A broadside by U.S Vice President Dick Cheney last month highlighted those concerns when he accused Moscow of using energy as a tool of “intimidation and blackmail” against countries that rely on Russia for their oil and gas.

But, as leaders of the world’s most powerful nations prepare for the Group of Eight summit in St Petersburg on July 15-17, they might want to consider whether Russia’s new assertiveness reflects not menacing strength – but weakness. “Russia’s attempts to play the big brother are not backed up by sufficient resources,” said Viktor Kremenyuk, deputy head of the Institute for USA and Canada Studies, a Moscow think-tank.

Kremenyuk said a row with Ukraine over gas prices in January had proved that Russia can no longer uphold the old “Brezhnev doctrine” of asserting Moscow’s hegemony and the right to intervene in its strategic backyard.

“It’s the end of Russian dominance in the post-Soviet space,” he told Reuters. “This is a big foreign policy issue”.

Fifteen years after the Soviet Union collapsed, Russia’s economy is riding a wave of petrodollars that has lifted gas monopoly Gazprom into the world’s top 10 companies by value.

Russia’s winner-take-all society has concentrated vast wealth in the hands of a few while leaving tens of millions on the breadline. Russia’s population is shrinking by 700,000 every year and its armed forces, riddled with brutality, are barely able to protect its borders, let alone pose a threat to its neighbours.