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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky landed Saturday in Hiroshima for diplomatic talks with the leaders of the world’s most powerful democracies who have tightened sanctions meant to punish Moscow and change the course of its 15-month invasion of Ukraine.
Japan says Zelensky’s decision to visit Hiroshima stems from his “strong wish” to participate in talks that will influence his nation’s defence against Russia, according to Associated Press.
An EU official, speaking on condition of anonymity to brief reporters on the deliberations, said Zelensky will take part in two separate sessions Sunday. The first session will be with G7 members only and will focus on the war in Ukraine. The second session will include the G7 as well as the other nations invited to take part in the summit, and will focus on “peace and stability.”
US national security adviser Jake Sullivan said that President Joe Biden and Zelensky would have direct engagement at the summit. On Friday, Biden announced his support for training Ukrainian pilots on US-made F-16 fighter jets, a precursor to eventually providing those aircraft to Ukraine’s Air Force.
World leaders have faced a balancing act at the G7 in Hiroshima as they look to address a raft of global worries demanding urgent attention, including climate change, AI, poverty and economic instability, nuclear proliferation and, above all, the war in Ukraine.
China, the world’s No. 2 economy, sits at the nexus of many of those concerns.
There is increasing anxiety in Asia that Beijing, which has been steadily building up its nuclear weapons programme, could try to seize Taiwan by force, sparking a wider conflict. China claims the self-governing island as its own and regularly sends ships and warplanes near it.
The G7 leaders issued a statement warning that China’s “accelerating build-up of its nuclear arsenal without transparency (or) meaningful dialogue poses a concern to global and regional stability.”
“We do seek to cooperate with China on matters of mutual interest,” Sullivan said of the statement. “We will work to address our significant concerns that we have with China in a range of areas.”
North Korea, which has been testing missiles at a torrid pace in an attempt to perfect a nuclear programme meant to target the mainland United States, must completely abandon its nuclear bomb ambitions, the leaders’ statement said, “including any further nuclear tests or launches that use ballistic missile technology. North Korea cannot and will never have the status of a nuclear-weapon State under” international nuclear treaties.
The green light on F-16 training is the latest shift by the Biden administration as it moves to arm Ukraine with more advanced and lethal weaponry, following earlier decisions to send rocket launcher systems and Abrams tanks. The United States has insisted that it is sending weapons to Ukraine to defend itself and has discouraged attacks by Ukraine into Russian territory.
“We’ve reached a moment where it is time to look down the road again to say what is Ukraine going to need as part of a future force, to be able to deter and defend against Russian aggression as we go forward,” Sullivan said.
The G7 leaders have rolled out a new wave of global sanctions on Moscow as well as plans to enhance the effectiveness of existing financial penalties meant to constrain President Vladimir Putin’s war effort. Russia is now the most-sanctioned country in the world, but there are questions about the effectiveness.