Russian G8 summit axed amid fears over Moscow’s ambitions

The Prime Minister said it was “absolutely clear” the meeting could not go ahead.

Speaking in The Hague ahead of a meeting of G7 leaders, he said: “We should be clear there’s not going to be a G8 summit this year in Russia. That’s absolutely clear.”

Preparations for the planned June summit in Sochi had already been suspended as a result of Russia’s actions in neighbouring Ukraine.

Mr Cameron, US President Barack Obama and other leaders of the group of the world’s richest countries will consider Russia’s future in the organisation amid ongoing fears about Moscow’s military intentions in Ukraine.

The Prime Minister was joining his counterparts in a hastily-convened gathering of leaders of the G7 countries, the first such meeting to take place without Russia for more than a decade.

The G8 is made up of the G7 of the UK, US, Germany, France, Italy, Canada and Japan plus Russia.

Mr Cameron said: “We will be meeting tonight, the seven other countries of the G8, to determine the way forward.

“But frankly it’s Russia that needs to change course.”

The Prime Minister said reports of Russian troops massing on Ukraine’s border were “concerning” and warned president Vladimir Putin that a fresh round of sanctions would follow if his forces marched any further into Ukrainian territory.

Concerns remain about Russia’s military ambitions in Ukraine, following the annexation of Crimea, with Nato’s supreme commander warning that Moscow had deployed a “very, very sizeable and very, very ready” force on the country’s border.

US General Philip Breedlove raised the prospect that the Kremlin could even seek to take control of a Russian-speaking section of nearby Moldova.

Mr Cameron said: “These reports are concerning and we need to send a very clear message to the Russian government and to president Putin that it would be completely unacceptable to go further into Ukraine, and that would trigger sanctions from the EU, from the US, from other countries as well.”

Ukraine’s fledgling government has ordered troops to withdraw from Crimea as Russian troops consolidate control over the peninsula.

Russian forces have been systematically seizing Ukrainian ships and military installations in Crimea, including a naval base near the eastern Crimean port of Feodosia, where two wounded servicemen were taken captive yesterday and as many as 80 were detained on-site, Ukrainian officials said.

With the storming of at least three military facilities over the past three days alone, it was not clear how many Ukrainian troops remained on the peninsula.

Moscow says its absorption of Crimea has been rendered legitimate by a referendum held earlier this month in which the bulk of voters in the peninsula approved the move, but the process has come under sustained criticism from the West.

Lord Dannatt, the former Chief of the General Staff, urged the Government not to make any more cuts to the armed forces.

He told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme: “If our defence capability is weak then at some point in the future we may find that we have wrong-footed ourselves.”