Russia-Ukraine conflict dominated at the G7 Summit in France. G7 leaders hailed a newly-found unity on increasing pressure on Russia to end its conflict with Ukraine, sensing a shift by President Donald Trump to take a tougher line against Moscow.
The 3-day meeting of the leaders of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States, agreed to increase the pressure on the Russian war economy, by strengthening sanctions, including on Moscow’s fossil fuel revenues.
G7 leaders also agreed to ramp up supplies of air defence equipment to Ukraine more than 4 years into conflict.
President Emmanuel Macron hailed a very deep change in the US approach towards Ukraine, saying President Trump had understood that Russian President Vladimir Putin was not interested in peace.
Emmanuel Macron, President of France said, “So (U.S.) President Donald Trump, like all of us, we simply noted that there was no serious willingness from Russia, today, to discuss peace. And this moment is that everyone listened to the state of the situation (given) by (Ukrainian) President (Volodymyr) Zelenskyy with a lot of respect, that everyone noted that Ukraine was resisting much better than some could have thought and that Russia was in a difficult situation and that all of us said: we are going to increase our support to Ukraine, that all of us said: we are going to increase the pressure on Russia and that all of us said: we must stay this course.”
Giorgia Meloni, Italian Prime Minister said, “I think that if we want to reach a result on this matter, I can tell you this: I believe it would be very difficult to put forward someone from one of the largest European countries. I think that proposing someone from one of those countries would make an agreement, from my point of view, more difficult. Therefore, I would turn towards the medium-sized powers of the European Union.”
