Zelensky meets with everyone in the G-7, except Lula, to press against Russia

by time news

2023-05-21 20:43:06

Almost eight decades ago it was Hiroshima and today it is Ukraine. In a setting as symbolic as this Japanese city, the President of Ukraine, Volodímir Zelenski, yesterday compared the devastation caused by the first atomic bomb in history with that suffered by his country due to the war with Russia. “Although not caused by nuclear weapons, the ruins in Ukraine are similar to those I have seen in the Hiroshima Peace Museum,” he said in his speech before answering questions from journalists for half an hour.

Answering the first of these on the most burning question of the day, he denied the taking of Bakhmut by Russian troops, which he seemed to have taken for granted a while before, acknowledging that “there is nothing left there anymore” and “it is only in our hearts”. Correcting his previous statements, Zelensky assured that “the city has not been occupied by Russia” and that “there are not two or three interpretations for these words”, since the Ukrainian forces “continue to carry out a very important mission” in Bakhmut.

Visibly tired from his long journey from Ukraine with a stopover in Jeddah to participate in the Arab League summit, Zelensky was “very happy” to have attended the G-7 in person, which includes the most advanced democracies, the United States, Japan, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Italy and Canada, plus the European Union. Since he arrived in Hiroshima on Saturday, he had a marathon schedule and met bilaterally with the leaders of its official members and with almost all the guests, including other powers such as South Korea and Australia and representatives of the so-called Global South such as the India, Brazil, Indonesia and Vietnam.

Of all of them, the only one with whom Zelensky did not meet in person was the president of Brazil, Lula da Silva, who has accused him of being “as responsible for the war as Putin.” With this precedent, their meeting would have been a surprise, but in the end it did not take place. “I have been with leaders who had not taken any steps before and I have met with almost all of them, but each one has their own agenda,” he answered evasively when asked why he had not met Lula in private. At the insistence of the journalists in case he felt disappointed by it, he ironically replied that “I may have disappointed him.”

Delving into this disagreement with Lula, Zelenski made it clear that “I do not have accidental meetings because we are at war and all the interviews are important, but not to insist but so that they understand us because Russia has been playing with disinformation for a long time.”

“Satisfied and very grateful”

In general terms, he declared himself “satisfied and very grateful” to Japan and the G-7 for having given him the opportunity to come to Hiroshima to “continue diplomatically pressing Russia because, with its invasion of our national territory, it is violating the Charter of the UN and all international laws. Dressed in his usual military uniform, he justified his presence because “as other countries came, he had to come in person to unblock some important issues.”

Making another analogy with the horror of the atomic bomb, he warned of the Russian occupation of the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant and recalled the Chernobyl accident in 1986. «I only have tears in my eyes. How can you do this to children?” she wondered about the eerie images documenting the atomic bomb on Hiroshima at the Peace Museum. Of all of them, one of the ones that had struck him the most, according to what he said, was the famous photo of the human shadow on some stone stairs, apparently of someone who had been volatilized by the explosion. A shadow that, in his opinion, is the same that Putin wants to impose on Ukraine.

To prevent this, Zelensky is leaving the G-7 not only by sending the F-16 fighter-bombers of some European countries, but also with “high-quality weapons provided by all, especially artillery.” This reinforcement will serve kyiv to carry out its expected counteroffensive in order to recover the territories annexed by Moscow. “When we start, Russia will notice,” he challenged himself on the dais of the convention center next to the Peace Museum.

Trying to prevent the dispute from escalating further, US President Joe Biden insisted that Zelenski has assured him that he will not use these planes to attack Russian territory. But that will not calm the anger of Moscow, which has already warned of the “colossal risks” involved in such an operation. It will not be the only one: the White House announced its thirty-eighth military aid package to kyiv, this one worth 350 million euros. “We will not hesitate to continue supporting Ukraine until a just peace is reached,” Biden promised.

For its part, the host of the G-7, Japan, will deliver to kyiv one hundred military trucks and 30,000 field rations for its soldiers. And that is another of the ironies of this summit in Hiroshima, the city of peace where World War II ended: that, in the name of defending Ukraine, it may be fueling World War III.

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