The 2005 G8 summit, hosted by the British Prime Minister in Edinburgh, was shaken by the terrorist attack on London transport and its aim to put a stop to poverty in Africa has hardly got off the ground. Last year, the Russian leader played host and dealt dismissively with Britain and the United States. When the same eight leaders meet today in Germany, their hostess, Angela Merkel, will be wondering what evil gene conspired to threaten to sink the summit even before it was launched.
This time the threat does not come from outside but from within - in the shape of a blustering Russian President, who has clearly decided that his energy-rich country will not sulk in the shadows of fallen communism, no longer play second to either the US or the European Union.
Bracketing the summit are the visits of US President George Bush to Prague yesterday and to Warsaw the day after tomorrow. Both the Czech Republic and Poland have agreed to an American plan to deploy a shield (a radar station in the Czech Republic and a missile silo in Poland) to counter any threat from "rogue states". That plan has now been met by a public statement from Vladimir Putin that, if the deployment takes place, Russia will again place European cities on its list of nuclear targets. To show he means business he went ahead with the testing of a new ballistic missile. Add a growing contempt and heavy-handedness towards opposition figures in his country and you have some idea of the problems that lie beneath the surface of today's meeting and which may even rise above that surface.
It is against this backdrop, and the usual protests outside the hall of blame, as it may well turn out to be described when the leaders return home, that the G8 leaders are meeting. One of those leaders is Mr Putin, whose behaviour over the past two years has been decidedly aggressive abroad, be it in the matter of gas supplies to the Ukraine or cyberwarfare on Estonia, and at home, silencing the opposition and the media.
The times, in short, and so the German Chancellor must be thinking, are not propitious and it is difficult to see how she can manage to emerge from this encounter unbruised.
Presumably she will do her utmost to make sure that progress will be made on the key issue of global warming where Ms Merkel has let it be known she is all in favour of ambitious cuts to emissions. Her European partners will back her up to the hilt on this one and Mr Bush is himself urging big economies to mount a concerted attack on gas emissions. But will Russia play ball?
On the business of the EU Constitution, an issue close to the German Chancellor's heart, the prognosis is not good. And on the matter of aid, it may well be more of the same as generous funds are pledged around the table only to shrink when the participants return to their various capitals.
Hovering over the meeting, however, will be the Ghost of Russia Past, when it was the Soviet Union. Will the G7 address its eighth member sternly, remind it of its increasing democratic deficit or will the leaders present prefer to keep on its right, that is, its bad side in the fear that lecturing Mr Putin will be unproductive? Nothing will be less productive than Mr Putin getting the idea that he can play the bully and get away scot-free.