Scottish nationalists have shunned a "separatist summit" organised by a pro-Kremlin group in Moscow.

Independence supporters - some serious, many less so - from around the world attended a special congress in Moscow on Sunday.

Initially Scots were billed, along with Catalans and Texans, as attending the event. But no-one from Scotland appears to have turned up after the SNP effectively urged a boycott in July in The Herald.

Vladimir Putin's regime has long hammered separatists within his own borders. But in recent months the Kremlin has held out the hand of friendship to independence movements overseas, including the SNP.

Its aim: to equate last year's independence referendum and the long-standing national movements in western Europe and elsewhere with unrecognised breakaway republics in what it calls "New Russia" - and what the rest of world calls south-eastern Ukraine.

Two self-proclaimed republics, of Donetsk and Lugansk, attended the congress of separatists. So too did somebody claiming to represent Solidaritat Catalana per la Independència or Catalan Solidarity for Independence. Whoever this was was described as representing the main slate running for independence in Catalunya next weekend, Junts pel Sí.

The SNP has always distanced itself from rebels in eastern Ukraine - which are rather more "unionist" than "separatist" in their politics given that many of them seek the re-integration of their territories in to Russia.

So too have mainstream groups in Catalunya, where independence supporters have widely rejected comparisons between their sovereignty movement and, for example, the referendum in Crimea last year.

Other confirmed attendees included a Texan group recently raided by the FBI and Sinn Fein, according to Russian media.

The summit was organised by a group called Globalisation Movement of Russia, which has adopted a radical anti-American rhetoric reminiscent of the whataboutery seen during the Cold War when the Soviet Union was challenged on human rights.

The group's president, Aleksandr Ionov, earlier told The Herald: "We are conducting negotiations with our Scottish partners from three organisations. I can say that the party [SNP] is one of them.

"The Anti-Globalisation Movement has been working with colleagues from Scotland for some years."

Any Scottish references have now been removed from the congress's publicity.

Mr Ionov stressed that his organisation was non-governmental but confirmed that it "co-operates closely with the Donetsk and Lugansk Peoples' Republics".

The congress has proved controversial in Russia - which has been accused of using pro-Kremlin TV stations like Russia Today to troll Spain and Britain on independence movements in Catalonia, the Basque Country and Scotland. Some commentators have warned against the dangers of fanning separatist flames within the still pluri-national Russian Federation.