“Russian diamonds are not forever”, quipped Charles Michel. The European Union will “limit the trade in Russian diamonds” as part of the sanctions against the invasion of Ukraine, the President of the European Council announced on Friday May 19 at the G7 summit in Hiroshima, Japan. A few hours earlier, the United Kingdom also announced new sanctions against Russia, relating to diamonds, but also to imports of aluminium, copper and nickel. In 2021, Russia exported diamonds worth an estimated $4-5 billion. Follow our live.
G7 leaders meeting in Japan. Sanctions against Russia will be on the menu of the discussions of the heads of state and government of the G7 gathered in Hiroshima, Japan, until Sunday. Washington has already warned that new sanctions “meaningful” would be taken against the “Russian war machine”. They must prevent “about 70 entities in Russia and other countries to receive American exported goods”according to a senior US government official.
New night air alert in kyiv. Air alert sirens sounded overnight from Thursday to Friday in Kyiv and other cities across the country, where military officials and media reported explosions including in Lviv and Rivne, in the west, or even in Kherson, in the south.
A series of “unprecedented” attacks on the Ukrainian capital. By Thursday morning, kyiv and several other Ukrainian cities had already been targeted by a wave of Russian missile strikes. The civil and military administration of the capital judges that the Russian strikes carried out in recent weeks are “unprecedented in their power, intensity and variety”.