G7 announces new sanctions against Russia while waiting for Volodymyr Zelensky

G7 leaders at Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, May 19, 2023. © AP - Susan Walsh

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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is expected in person at the G7 summit in Hiroshima, Japan, whose leaders announced on Friday new sanctions to "deprive Russia" of resources that "support its war enterprise" in Ukraine.

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Meanwhile, Volodymyr Zelensky arrived Friday in Saudi Arabia for an unprecedented visit and surprise guest of the Arab League summit organized in Jeddah. He thanked Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for "supporting the territorial integrity" of Ukraine in a bilateral meeting.

Volodymyr Zelensky will then travel this weekend to Hiroshima, a Japanese city that suffered the first atomic bombing in history in 1945 and has since become a global symbol of peace.

Zelensky's presence underscores 'importance of conflict'

While he was initially scheduled to speak by video conference at the G7 summit in Hiroshima, Volodymyr Zelensky is expected to participate in person on Sunday, the last day of the summit. That is to say, when the leaders of eight countries invited by the Japanese presidency will also be present, including major emerging countries such as Brazil, Indonesia and especially India, which has close military ties with Russia and has refused to condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

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The presence in person of our President is absolutely essential to defend our interests " said Secretary of the Security Council of Ukraine Oleksiy Danilov. This "very important" trip will be "an opportunity" for Volodymyr Zelensky to "express himself with as many leaders as possible," commented a French diplomatic source quoted by AFP, saying that the "best spokesman" for the cause of Ukraine, "is the Ukrainian president himself".

An opportunity to solicit new military resources for Ukraine

Volodymyr Zelensky should ask the G7 for new military means to better oppose Russian troops, before the announced counter-offensive in Kiev: more artillery shells, sophisticated air defense systems, and probably a new demand to obtain American-made F-16s, combat aircraft that the Europeans also have in large quantities.

In anticipation of his visit, the United States, Japan, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Italy and Canada announced in a joint statement issued after a meeting on Ukraine measures to "deprive Russia of G7 technologies, industrial equipment and services that support its war enterprise."

This includes restrictions on exports of goods "essential to Russia on the battlefield," as well as targeting entities accused of transporting equipment to the front on its behalf. The United Kingdom and the European Union, which participates in the G7 talks, had previously announced restrictions on their imports of Russian diamonds, which bring billions of dollars to Moscow each year.

The issue of nuclear disarmament

G7 leaders also gathered Friday at the Peace Memorial Park with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, whose family and political roots are in Hiroshima. They paid tribute to the approximately 140,000 victims of the American atomic bomb of August 6, 1945, reports our special envoy, Vincent Souriau.

However, Fumio Kishida's dream of using the opportunity of this summit to send a strong message for nuclear disarmament is likely to remain wishful thinking. The United States, the United Kingdom and the France possess thousands of nuclear warheads, and the other members of the G7, including Japan, are covered by the American "nuclear umbrella".

The summit agenda will also be dominated by China and the willingness of G7 countries to diversify their supply chains to guard against the risk of "economic coercion" from Beijing. However, the France assured that it would not be "a G7 of confrontation" but "a G7 of cooperation and demand towards China". However, following discussions on nuclear disarmament, G7 leaders said the rapid expansion of China's nuclear arsenal was a "concern for global and regional stability."

The summit is also expected to be an opportunity for the leaders of the United States, India, Australia and Japan to hold talks on Saturday as part of the informal Quad Alliance of the Indo-Pacific region, whose meeting originally scheduled for next week in Australia had been canceled because of an agenda of President Joe Biden thwarted by the US debt crisis.

► Read also: Beijing accuses the G7 of "slander" and "dirty" China

(

And with AFP)

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  • G7
  • Japan
  • Russia
  • Diplomacy
  • Economy
  • Volodymyr Zelensky