The G7 promised on Saturday to “raise the cost of the war” in Ukraine for Moscow, two years to the day after the start of its invasion, at the end of a virtual summit intended to reaffirm all-out support for Kyiv .
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“We will continue to drive up the cost of Russia’s war, lower its revenue streams and impede its efforts to build its war machine, as demonstrated by the sanctions packages we recently adopted,” the G7 leaders say in a statement.
This meeting was the first of the heads of state and government of the G7 member countries (United States, Japan, Germany, France, United Kingdom, Italy, Canada) under Italian presidency.
For this occasion, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni went to Kyiv, where she chaired the virtual meeting with her Canadian counterpart Justin Trudeau and the President of the Commission Ursula von der Leyen, who also came on site.
AFP
The G7 leaders did not hesitate to specifically target China and Iran for their logistical support to Russia.
“We call on Iran to stop supporting the Russian army,” said the leaders of the G7 in which French President Emmanuel Macron, absent, was replaced by his Minister of Foreign Affairs Stéphane Séjourné.
They also expressed their “concern about transfers to Russia by Chinese companies (…) of components for weapons and equipment for military production”.
North Korea was also targeted, with the G7 “strongly condemning North Korean exports and the supply of North Korean ballistic missiles to Russia” and calling for an “immediate end to such activities”.
More generally, the G7 pledged to “act against third-party actors that materially support Russia’s war, including by imposing new measures against entities (…) in third countries,” calling “institutions financial resources not to support the Russian war machine.
While Canada and Italy signed bilateral agreements with Ukraine on Saturday modeled on those already concluded by Germany and France, the G7 called on Ukraine’s donors to validate their financial contribution for 2024 , without however directly mentioning the blocking of new American aid in Congress.
“We urge approval of additional assistance to meet Ukraine’s remaining budgetary needs in 2024,” they urged, in a clear allusion to the American blockage.
AFP