Newsman: U.S. allies at the Group of Seven summit of major industrialized nations worked Tuesday to push the war in Ukraine back up the agenda of President Donald Trump after more than four years of fighting sparked by Russia’s full-scale invasion.
Host President Emmanuel Macron of France said he’ll seek to persuade Trump to continue supporting Ukraine and increase pressure on Russia to help reach a peace agreement. As the U.S. under Trump has cut back aid to Ukraine, France and its European allies are now the biggest providers of military and financial support to Kyiv.
Trump said Tuesday he’ll be meeting one-on-one with Zelenskyy.
“The whole thing is ridiculous,” Trump said. “So, yeah, I’m going to do whatever I can.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy joined G7 leaders for a morning working session but talks wrapped quickly, as leaders gathered for just 75 minutes, according to the French G7 presidency.
The Ukraine talks came on the heels of Trump’s announcement of an agreement to end the 3 and half month-old U.S. war against Iran. Trump said he wants to focus on Ukraine now, saying Iran will soon be “back in the rearview mirror.” He downplayed the impact of the Russia-Ukraine war on the U.S. but lamented the death toll.
Meanwhile, the U.K. announced a new set of sanctions targeting the ” shadow fleet ” Russia uses to ship oil and gas, and the finance networks used by Moscow to evade Western sanctions. The ships targeted include several vessels recently purchased by Russia to transport liquefied natural gas from its sanctioned Arctic LNG 2 project.
Last weekend, U.K. troops seized a Russian shadow fleet vessel in the English Channel for the first time.
Hours before the summit began, Russia fired hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles at Ukraine’s biggest cities in a barrage that killed 11 people and set fire to a religious landmark.
The attacks on Ukraine’s biggest cities came after Zelenskyy and Putin spoke separately by phone with Trump on Sunday, the U.S. leader’s 80th birthday. The exchange suggests Washington hasn’t given up on its diplomatic efforts to stop the fighting that followed Moscow’s all-out invasion of its neighbor in 2022.
Ukraine on Monday officially started European Union membership negotiations, launching a process that will require its government to commit to years of political reforms even as it fights the Russian invasion.
Ukraine sees EU membership as a security guarantee for a stable future once the war ends. Its best guarantee would be membership in the NATO military alliance, but the Trump administration insists that cannot happen, and others are wary of it joining while the war continues.
G7 leaders also convened a working lunch to discuss the situation in the Middle East, with conversation expected to focus on the path ahead after the U.S.-Iran ceasefire agreement.
The G7 comprises France, the United States, Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United Kingdom. Other guest nations at this summit, including Brazil, India, Kenya and South Korea, were invited to participate in some discussions.
