2023-05-19 03:56:00
The United States is stepping up. Washington has decided on new “significant” sanctions targeting the “Russian war machine”, said a senior American official shortly before the start of the G7 summit in Hiroshima (western Japan) on Friday, which President Joe Biden is to attend. This American initiative comes at a time when the leaders of the main industrialized democracies must in particular agree in Japan on a hardening against Russia and find a common line in the face of the growing military and economic power of China.
The U.S. measures are intended to “significantly restrict Russia’s access to products necessary for its combat capabilities,” according to a senior Biden administration official. They will prevent “approximately 70 entities in Russia and other countries from receiving American exported goods, by adding them to the Commerce Department’s blacklist”, the official added, referring to more than 300 new sanctions against ” people, organizations, ships and aircraft” across Europe, the Middle East and Asia.
Other members of the G7 – which brings together the United States, Japan, Germany, France, United Kingdom, Italy and Canada – are also preparing to “put in place new sanctions and barriers to exports”, he said. He specifies. The G7 will work to disrupt Russian military supplies, close sanctions-busting loopholes, further reduce its dependence on Russian energy, continue to restrict Moscow’s access to the international financial system and s commit to freezing Russian assets until the end of the war, this source assured.
Suspense around the presence of Zelensky
A European Union official announced on Thursday that the G7 talks would focus on the Russian diamond industry, which brings in several billion dollars to Moscow each year. “We believe in limiting the exports of Russian trade in this sector,” the source said, adding that joining India, one of the main diamond importers, would also be crucial for the success of any new measure.
G7 leaders will be able to present their case directly to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose country has close military ties with Russia, and who has refused to condemn Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. India is one of eight third countries whose leaders were invited to the Hiroshima summit: a way for the G7 to try to rally some states reluctant to oppose Russia’s war in Ukraine and growing military ambitions from Beijing.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is expected to speak via video conference over the weekend. The Japanese government ruled out the possibility of his coming in person, but speculation persisted.
The G7 talks will officially begin on Friday afternoon Japanese time, after a visit by the leaders to Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park. Heads of state and government will lay wreaths at the cenotaph in Hiroshima, which commemorates some 140,000 people killed by the US atomic bomb on August 6, 1945.
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