West consolidates position on Ukraine
Amid Nato and G7 summits, Russia said Western nations were prolonging the war by sending arms to Kyiv
MADRID/MOSCOW: The Group of Seven ended their summit vowing to make Russia pay for its invasion of Ukraine, while the Nato chief warned of “dangerous world” as the alliance began a summit that would decide its course for years to come.
The G7 leaders agreed to explore imposing a ban on transporting Russian oil that has been sold above a certain price, they said on Tuesday, aiming to hit Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war chest.
The war in Ukraine and its dramatic economic fallout, in particular soaring food and energy inflation, dominated this year’s summit of the group of rich democracies at a castle resort in the Bavarian Alps.
An oil price cap would ratchet up existing Western pressure on Russia from sanctions, which German Chancellor Olaf Scholz insisted would stay until Putin accepted failure in Ukraine.
“There is only one way out: for Putin to accept that his plans in Ukraine will not succeed,” Scholz told a closing news conference at the three-day G7 summit he hosted.
The idea behind the cap is to tie financial services, insurance and the shipping of oil cargoes to a price ceiling. So if a shipper or importer wanted these services, they would have to commit to the Russian oil being sold for a
set maximum price.
“We invite all like-minded countries to consider joining us in our actions,” the G7 leaders said in the communique.
The G7 is looking at the price ceiling as a way to prevent Moscow profiting from its invasion of Ukraine, which has sharply raised energy prices, taking the sting out of Western efforts to reduce imports of Russian oil and gas. Russian oil export revenues climbed in May even as volumes fell, the International Energy Agency said in its June monthly report.
G7 also leaders urged China on Tuesday to uphold the principle of peaceful settlement of disputes by pressing Russia to stop its invasion of Ukraine.
China should pressure Russia
to withdraw troops from Ukraine immediately and without conditions, the G7 said, pointing to an International Court of Justice ruling that Moscow suspend its military operation, and related UN General Assembly resolutions.
Meanwhile, the leader of the Nato alliance said on Tuesday that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has sparked a “fundamental shift” in Nato’s approach to defence, and member states will have to boost their military spending in an increasingly unstable world.
Secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg spoke as US President Joe Biden and other Nato leaders began to arrive in Madrid for a summit that will set the course of the alliance for the coming
years. He said the meeting would chart a blueprint for the alliance “in a more dangerous and unpredictable world”.
“To be able to defend in a more dangerous world we have to invest more in our defence,” Stoltenberg said. Just nine of Nato’s 30 members meet the organisation’s target of spending 2% of gross domestic product on defence. Top of the agenda for leaders in meetings Wednesday and Thursday is strengthening defences against Russia and supporting Ukraine.
Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday the more Western countries send weapons to Ukraine the longer the conflict will last.
Russia has repeatedly blamed the West for prolonging the conflict,
which Moscow calls a “special military operation”, and has targeted missile strikes against arms depots storing weapons provided to Kyiv by the United States and Europe.
Speaking at a news conference during a visit to Turkmenistan, Lavrov said Russia did not target a shopping centre in the Ukrainian city of Kremenchuk on Monday, where at least 18 people died following a Russian strike.
Echoing a statement issued by Russia’s defence ministry earlier on Tuesday, Lavrov saidthe mall was empty at the time a fire occurred as a result of Russia hitting an arms depot storing Western weapons that was next to the shopping centre. The G7 called the strike a war crime.