G7 offers Ukraine long-term support
Leaders of the world’s richest democracies sent strong messages of sustained support for Ukraine yesterday, as President Volodymyr Zelenskiy denied Russia’s claims to have finally taken the eastern city of Bakhmut.
Speaking ahead of a meeting with US President Joe Biden on the sidelines of a Group of Seven (G7) summit in the Japanese city of Hiroshima, Zelenskiy told reporters the battered eastern city, the focus of fighting in recent months, had been destroyed.
“It is a tragedy,” Zelenskiy said. “There is nothing left of this place ”— what remained was “a lot of dead Russians”.
There was confusion over whether he had been asked whether the city was still in Kyiv’s hands or whether Russian forces had taken Bakhmut, but a spokesman for the Ukrainian leader said his comments were a denial that the city had fallen.
Russian President Vladimir Putin hailed what he said was a victory for his forces, describing it as the “liberation” of Bakhmut in a statement on the Kremlin’s website.
The assault on the largely levelled city was led by troops from the Wagner group of mercenaries, whose leader Yevgeny Prigozhin said his troops had finally pushed the Ukrainians out of the last built-up area inside the city.
During the final day of the three-day G7 summit yesterday, Biden announced a $375million (R7.2bn) package of military aid, including artillery and armoured vehicles, for Ukraine.
He told Zelenskiy the US was doing all it could to strengthen Ukraine’s defence against Russia, assuring the Ukrainian leader that America would have Ukraine’s back.
Other leaders of the G7 — the US, Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Italy and Canada — echoed Biden’s sentiments.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised his country would support Ukraine for as long and as much as necessary.
Biden told G7 leaders that Washington supported joint allied training programmes for Ukrainian pilots on F-16s warplanes, although Kyiv has not yet won commitments for delivery of the fighter jets.
The potential for such training on US-made F-16s was a message to Russia that it should not expect to succeed in its invasion by prolonging the conflict, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said training would start this summer and Ukraine would get the air force it needed for the future.
It was “significant” that the G7 nations showed solidarity in their intention to uphold international law and order during a summit attended by Zelenskiy as a guest, the prime minister of host nation Japan, Fumio Kishida said.
Scholz said that while the immediate priority was supporting Ukraine’s defence, security guarantees for Ukraine needed to be established once the war was over.
Both Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron appeared to stand with Ukraine in opposing any notion of the war becoming a “frozen conflict,” or any proposal for peace talks without Russian troops withdrawing.
As Moscow’s 15-month-old invasion has dragged on, several analysts and diplomats have floated the idea that it could become frozen, like the conflict on the Korean Peninsula. North and South Korea remain technically at war as their 1950-53 conflict ended with a ceasefire rather than a peace treaty.
“Peace should not make Ukraine a frozen conflict because that would lead to a war in the future. It needs to resolve the problem,” Macron said.
The Hiroshima summit also gave Zelenskiy a chance to lobby for support from other attendees, like Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Brazil’s Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who have remained uncommitted.
While determination to help Ukraine repel Russia’s invasion was a key message from the G7 summit, the other was distrust of China as a trading partner.
Biden met the leaders of Japan and South Korea on Sunday to discuss military interoperability and the economic coercion they face from China, a US official said.