Ukraine
Ukrainian president meets with world leaders at G7 as Russia claims a key victory in the war
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy huddled with some of his biggest backers in Hiroshima on Sunday, building momentum for his country's war effort even as Russia claimed a symbolic victory on the battlefield.
The Ukrainian leader's in-person appearance in his trademark olive drab during the final day of the Group of Seven summit underscored the centrality of the war for the bloc of rich democracies. It also stole much of the limelight from other priorities, including security challenges in Asia and outreach to the developing world, that the leaders focused on at the three-day gathering.
Zelenskyy held two major rounds of meetings Sunday, one with G7 leaders and a second with them and a host of invited guests including India, South Korea and Brazil. He also held one-on-one talks with several of the leaders.
Also Read: Zelenskyy says ‘Bakhmut is only in our hearts’ after Russia claims controls of Ukrainian city
U.S. President Joe Biden announced a new military aid package worth $375 million for Ukraine during his meeting with Zelenskyy, saying the U.S. would provide ammunition and armored vehicles. That fresh pledge came days after the U.S. agreed to allow training on American-made F-16 fighter jets, laying the groundwork for their eventual transfer to Ukraine.
"We have Ukraine's back and we're not going anywhere," Biden said.
Zelenskyy thanked Biden for the support, adding that "we will never forget."
Even before Zelenskyy landed Saturday aboard a French plane, the G7 nations had unveiled a slew of new sanctions and other measures meant to punish Moscow over its invasion that began in February last year.
Read More: G7 'outreach' an effort to build consensus on global issues like Ukraine, China, climate change
Hanging over Sunday's talks was the claim by Russia's Defense Ministry that forces of the Wagner private army, backed by Russian troops, had seized the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut. The eight-month battle for the eastern city — seen by both sides as a major symbolic prize — has been the longest and likely the bloodiest of the war.
Asked if Bakhmut was still in Ukraine's hands, Zelenskyy said he thought that Russian forces had finally taken the city in a siege that "destroyed everything."
"For today, Bakhmut is only in our hearts. There is nothing in this place," Zelenskyy said, adding that the fight had left nothing in Bakhmut but a lot of "dead Russians."
While Ukraine was the overwhelming focus of the summit, the leaders of Japan, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Canada and Italy, as well as the European Union, also aimed to address global worries over climate change, AI, poverty, economic instability and nuclear proliferation.
Biden also aimed to reassure world leaders that the U.S. would not default because of the debt limit standoff that has cast a large shadow over his trip.
Two U.S. allies — South Korea and Japan — continued efforts Sunday to improve ties that have often been hurt by lingering anger over issues linked to Japan's brutal 1910-1945 colonization of the Korean Peninsula. Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol visited a memorial to Korean victims, many of them slave laborers, of the Aug. 6, 1945, atomic bombing.
Washington wants the two neighbors, both of which are liberal democracies and bulwarks of U.S. power in the region, to stand together on issues, including rising aggression from China, North Korea and Russia.
Biden, Yoon and Kishida met briefly as a group outside the summit venue posing for photos in front of Hiroshima Bay. Biden invited the two leaders to visit Washington for a trilateral meeting and they accepted, a US official who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity said.
Zelenskyy also met on the sidelines of the summit with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, their first face-to-face talks since the war, and briefed him on Ukraine's peace plan, which calls for the withdrawal of Russian troops from the country before any negotiations.
India, the world's largest democracy, has avoided outright condemnation of Russia's invasion. While India maintains close ties with the U.S. and its Western allies, it is also a major buyer of Russian arms and oil.
Summits like the G7 are a chance for leaders to put pressure on one another to align or redouble their diplomatic efforts, according to Matthew Goodman, an economics expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank in Washington.
"Zelenskyy's presence puts some pressure on G7 leaders to deliver more — or explain to him directly why they can't," he said.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov criticized the summit for aiming to isolate both China and Russia.
"The task has been set loudly and openly: to defeat Russia on the battlefield, but not to stop there, but to eliminate it as a geopolitical competitor," he said.
The G7, however, has vowed to intensify the pressure, calling Russia's assault on Ukraine "a threat to the whole world in breach of fundamental norms, rules and principles of the international community."
The group took a different approach in its comments on China, the world's No. 2 economy. There is increasing anxiety that Beijing, which has been steadily building up its nuclear weapons program, could try to seize self-governing Taiwan by force, sparking a wider conflict.
The G7 said they did not want to harm China and was seeking "constructive and stable relations" with Beijing, "recognizing the importance of engaging candidly with and expressing our concerns directly to China."
They also urged China to pressure Russia to end the war in Ukraine and "support a comprehensive, just and lasting peace."
China's Foreign Ministry said that "gone are the days when a handful of Western countries can just willfully meddle in other countries' internal affairs and manipulate global affairs. We urge G7 members to ... focus on addressing the various issues they have at home, stop ganging up to form exclusive blocs, stop containing and bludgeoning other countries."
The G7 also warned North Korea, which has been testing missiles at a torrid pace, to completely abandon its nuclear weapon ambitions, "including any further nuclear tests or launches that use ballistic missile technology," the leaders' statement said.
The G7 leaders have rolled out a new wave of global sanctions on Russia, now the most-sanctioned country in the world, as well as plans to enhance the effectiveness of existing financial penalties meant to constrain President Vladimir Putin's war effort.
The latest sanctions aimed at Russia include tighter restrictions on already-sanctioned people and firms involved in the war effort. More than 125 individuals and organizations across 20 countries have been hit with U.S. sanctions.
Russia had participated in some summits with the other seven countries before being removed from the then-Group of Eight after its 2014 annexation of Crimea.
Kishida, mindful of the host city's symbolic importance, has twice taken leaders to visit to a peace park dedicated to the tens of thousands who died in the world's first wartime atomic bomb detonation. He had wanted nuclear disarmament to be a major focus of discussions.
Some survivors of the 1945 atomic bomb attack and their families worried that Zelenskyy's inclusion at the summit overshadowed that priority. Etsuko Nakatani, an activist whose parents survived the Hiroshima atomic bombing, said the leader's visit was "not appropriate for Hiroshima, which is a peace-loving city."
Protesters carrying "No War No G7" banners briefly scuffled with riot police deployed as part of a massive show of force throughout the city during a march Sunday.
The G7 leaders also discussed efforts to strengthen the global economy and address rising prices that are squeezing families and government budgets around the world, particularly in developing countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. They reiterated their aim to pull together up to $600 billion in financing for the G7's global infrastructure development initiative, which is meant to offer countries an alternative to China's investment dollars.
Zelenskyy says ‘Bakhmut is only in our hearts’ after Russia claims controls of Ukrainian city
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Sunday that Bakhmut was "only in our hearts," hours after Russia's defense ministry reported that forces of the Wagner private army, with the support of Russian troops, had seized the city in eastern Ukraine.
Speaking alongside U.S. President Joe Biden at the Group of Seven summit in Hiroshima, Japan, Zelenskyy said the Russians had destroyed "everything." "You have to understand that there is nothing," he said.
"For today, Bakhmut is only in our hearts," he said. "There is nothing in this place."
The Russian ministry statement on the Telegram channel came about eight hours after a similar announcement by Wagner head Yevgeny Prigozhin. Ukrainian authorities at that time said that fighting for Bakhmut was continuing.
The eight-month battle for Bakhmut has been the longest and probably most bloody of the conflict in Ukraine.
Also Read: Japanese atomic bomb survivors worry Zelenskyy's G7 visit overshadows nuke disarmament message
Zelenskyy's comments came as Biden announced $375 million more in aid for Ukraine, which included more ammunition, artillery, and vehicles.
"I thanked him for the significant financial assistance to (Ukraine) from (the U.S.)," Zelenskyy tweeted later.
Analysts said that a Russian victory in Bakhmut was unlikely to turn the tide in the war.
The Russian capture of the last remaining ground in Bakhmut is "not tactically or operationally significant," a Washington-based think tank said late Saturday. The Institute for the Study of War said that taking control of these areas "does not grant Russian forces operationally significant terrain to continue conducting offensive operations," nor to "to defend against possible Ukrainian counterattacks."
Using the city's Soviet-era name, the Russian ministry said, "In the Artyomovsk tactical direction, the assault teams of the Wagner private military company with the support of artillery and aviation of the southern battlegroup has completed the liberation of the city of Artyomovsk."
Russian state news agencies cited the Kremlin's press service as saying President Vladimir Putin "congratulates the Wagner assault detachments, as well as all servicemen of the Russian Armed Forces units, who provided them with the necessary support and flank protection, on the completion of the operation to liberate Artyomovsk."
In a video posted earlier on Telegram, Wagner head Yevgeny Prigozhin said the city came under complete Russian control at about midday Saturday. He spoke flanked by about a half dozen fighters, with ruined buildings in the background and explosions heard in the distance.
Fighting has raged in and around Bakhmut for more than eight months.
Russian forces will still face the massive task of seizing the remaining part of the Donetsk region still under Ukrainian control, including several heavily fortified areas.
It isn't clear which side has paid a higher price in the battle for Bakhmut. Both Russia and Ukraine have endured losses believed to be in the thousands, though neither has disclosed casualty numbers.
Zelenskyy underlined the importance of defending Bakhmut in an interview with The Associated Press in March, saying its fall could allow Russia to rally international support for a deal that might require Kyiv to make unacceptable compromises.
Analysts have said Bakhmut's fall would be a blow to Ukraine and give some tactical advantages to Russia but wouldn't prove decisive to the outcome of the war.
Russian forces still face the enormous task of seizing the rest of the Donetsk region under Ukrainian control, including several heavily fortified areas. The provinces of Donetsk and neighboring Luhansk make up the Donbas, Ukraine's industrial heartland where a separatist uprising began in 2014 and which Moscow illegally annexed in September.
Bakhmut, located about 55 kilometers (34 miles) north of the Russian-held regional capital of Donetsk, had a prewar population of 80,000 and was an important industrial center, surrounded by salt and gypsum mines.
The city, which was named Artyomovsk after a Bolshevik revolutionary when Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union, also was known for its sparkling wine production in underground caves. Its broad tree-lined avenues, lush parks and stately downtown with imposing late 19th-century mansions — all now reduced to a smoldering wasteland — made it a popular tourist destination.
When a separatist rebellion engulfed eastern Ukraine in 2014 weeks after Moscow's illegal annexation of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula, the rebels quickly won control of the city, only to lose it a few months later.
After Russia switched its focus to the Donbas following a botched attempt to seize Kyiv early in the February 2022 invasion, Moscow's troops tried to take Bakhmut in August but were pushed back.
The fighting there abated in autumn as Russia was confronted with Ukrainian counteroffensives in the east and the south, but it resumed at full pace late last year. In January, Russia captured the salt-mining town of Soledar, just north of Bakhmut, and closed in on the city's suburbs.
Intense Russian shelling targeted the city and nearby villages as Moscow waged a three-sided assault to try to finish off the resistance in what Ukrainians called "fortress Bakhmut."
Mercenaries from Wagner spearheaded the Russian offensive. Prigozhin tried to use the battle for the city to expand his clout amid the tensions with the top Russian military leaders whom he harshly criticized.
"We fought not only with the Ukrainian armed forces in Bakhmut. We fought the Russian bureaucracy, which threw sand in the wheels," Prigozhin said in the video on Saturday.
The relentless Russian artillery bombardment left few buildings intact amid ferocious house-to-house battles. Wagner fighters "marched on the bodies of their own soldiers" according to Ukrainian officials. Both sides have spent ammunition at a rate unseen in any armed conflict for decades, firing thousands of rounds a day.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu has said that seizing the city would allow Russia to press its offensive farther into the Donetsk region, one of the four Ukrainian provinces that Moscow illegally annexed in September.
World leaders warn China and North Korea on nukes as Ukraine's Zelenskyy travels to G7 summit
Leaders of the world's most powerful democracies warned China and North Korea against building up their nuclear arsenals, pivoting to major northeast Asian crises ahead of the arrival later Saturday of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
The focus on Asia at the Group of Seven summit comes as leaders tighten sanctions meant to punish Moscow and change the course of its 15-month invasion of Ukraine. Japan confirmed that Zelenskyy's decision to attend the G7 in person stemmed from his “strong wish” to participate in talks that will influence his nation's defense against Russia.
U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said that President Joe Biden and Zelenskyy would have direct engagement at the summit, a day after Biden announced his support for training Ukrainian pilots on U.S.-made F-16 fighter jets, a precursor to eventually providing those aircraft to Ukraine’s Air Force.
World leaders have faced a high-stakes balancing act 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.
Also read: Bangladeshi youth demand G7 nations stop financing deadly fossil fuels
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 bomb program, 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.”
North Korea, which has been testing missiles at a torrid pace in an attempt to perfect a nuclear program meant to target the mainland United States, must completely abandon its nuclear bomb ambitions, the leaders 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 statement said.
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.
An EU official, speaking on condition of anonymity to brief reporters on the deliberations, said Zelenskyy 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.”
The G7 leaders also used their summit to roll 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.
“Our support for Ukraine will not waver,” the G7 leaders said in a statement released after closed-door meetings. They vowed “to stand together against Russia’s illegal, unjustifiable and unprovoked war of aggression against Ukraine.”
“Russia started this war and can end this war,” they said.
Zelenskyy has consistently called for the supply of Western fighter jets to bolster his country’s defenses against Russia’s invasion, but has until now faced skepticism from the United States that they would turn the tide in the war.
Now, as Ukraine has improved its air defenses with a host of Western-supplied anti-aircraft systems and prepares to launch a counteroffensive against Russia, officials believe the jets could become useful in the battle and essential to the country’s long-term security.
Biden's decisions on when, how many, and who will provide the fourth-generation F-16 fighter jets will be made in the months ahead while the training is underway, Biden told leaders.
The F-16 training is to be conducted in Europe and will likely begin in the coming weeks. That’s according to two people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss Biden’s private conversations with allies.
Zelenskyy said Friday that he had opened a visit to Saudi Arabia, where Arab leaders were holding their own summit.
The latest sanctions aimed at Russia include tighter restrictions on already-sanctioned people and firms involved in the war effort. More than 125 individuals and organizations across 20 countries have been hit with U.S. sanctions. The financial penalties have been primarily focused on sanctions evaders connected to technology procurement for the Kremlin. The Commerce Department also added 71 firms to its own list.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the Friday sanctions “will further tighten the vise on Putin’s ability to wage his barbaric invasion and will advance our global efforts to cut off Russian attempts to evade sanctions.”
In addition, new reporting requirements were issued for people and firms that have any interest in Russian Central Bank assets. The purpose is to “fully map holdings of Russia’s sovereign assets that will remain immobilized in G7 jurisdictions until Russia pays for the damage it has caused to Ukraine,” the U.S. Treasury Department said.
Russia is now the most-sanctioned country in the world, but there are questions about the effectiveness.
Maria Snegovaya, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said going into the summit that while G7 countries “deserve credit” for their sanctions, “Russia still maintains capacity to fight this war in the long term.”
She added that war's costs are "easily manageable for Russia in the next couple of years at least, and the cumulative effect of sanctions is just not strong enough to radically alter that.”
The G7 nations said in Friday’s statement that they would work to keep Russia from using the international financial system to prosecute its war, and they urged other nations to stop providing Russia with support and weapons “or face severe costs.”
World leaders Friday visited a peace park dedicated to the tens of thousands who died in the world’s first wartime atomic bomb detonation. Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who represents Hiroshima in parliament, wants nuclear disarmament to be a major focus of discussions.
The peace park contains reminders of Aug. 6, 1945, when a U.S. B-29 dropped an atomic bomb over Hiroshima, a city that has become synonymous with anti-nuclear peace efforts.
Biden, who scrapped plans to travel on to Papua New Guinea and Australia after his stay in Japan so that he can get back to debt limit talks in Washington, arranged to meet Saturday on the G-7 sidelines with leaders of the so-called Quad partnership, made up of Japan, Australia, India and the U.S.
As G7 attendees made their way to Hiroshima, Moscow unleashed yet another aerial attack on the Ukrainian capital. Loud explosions thundered through Kyiv during the early hours, marking the ninth time this month that Russian air raids have targeted the city after weeks of relative quiet.
In a bit of dueling diplomacy, Chinese President Xi Jinping is hosting the leaders of the Central Asian countries of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan for a two-day summit in the Chinese city of Xi’an.
The G7 leaders are also to discuss efforts to strengthen the global economy and address rising prices that are squeezing families and government budgets around the world, particularly in developing countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
A U.S. official said the leaders on Saturday would issue a joint communique outlining new projects in the G7's global infrastructure development initiative, which is meant to offer countries an alternative to China's investment dollars.
The G7 includes Japan, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Canada and Italy, as well as the European Union.
European nations zoom in on establishing system to pinpoint how much damage Russia caused in Ukraine
Leaders from across Europe were wrapping a two-day summit on Wednesday, putting the final touches on a system to establish the damage Russia is causing during the war in Ukraine, in the hopes it can be forced to compensate victims and help rebuild the nation once the conflict is over.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine was the dominant topic during the meeting in the Icelandic capital, Reykjavík, where delegations from the Council of Europe discussed how the continent’s preeminent human rights organization can support Kyiv.
The most tangible outcome of the meeting — the first summit the Council of Europe has held in nearly two decades — is the creation of the register of damages. Expected to be housed in The Hague, the register will allow victims of the war to report the harm they have suffered.
Also Read: Russia's threat to exit Ukraine grain deal adds risk to global food security
“When we think in terms of reconstruction it’s an enormously important judicial element to have this register of damages to give justice to the victims,” said European Union Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said, speaking at the opening of the summit late Tuesday.
The record is “intended to constitute the first component of a future international compensation mechanism” according to a Council of Europe document. The operation will be financed by the signatories.
Such a register could be used to distribute reparations from a proposed tribunal to prosecute the crime of aggression, another concept backed by the Council of Europe. In his address to the summit on Tuesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reiterated his country’s wish for such a court.
Also Read: G-7 leaders likely to focus on the war in Ukraine and tensions in Asia at summit in Hiroshima
There will be no reliable peace without justice,” he said, speaking to the opening session via video link.
The Council of Europe's secretary general, Marija Pejčinović Burić, announced ahead of the summit that the body intends to support the international effort to establish a judicial organ to prosecute the crime of aggression — the literal act of invading another country.
The International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin and another official for war crimes, accusing him of personal responsibility for the abductions of children from Ukraine. But the court lacks the ability to prosecute aggression.
Not all of the Council of Europe’s 46 members are backing the damages register, however. Ten countries, including Hungary, Turkey and Serbia have refused to sign up. Switzerland has also not joined, but this is a result of domestic legal requirements, according to Swiss officials, and the Alpine nation plans to become a signatory as soon as possible.
Russia's threat to exit Ukraine grain deal adds risk to global food security
The United Nations is racing to extend a deal that has allowed shipments of Ukrainian grain through the Black Sea to parts of the world struggling with hunger, helping ease a global food crisis exacerbated by the war Russia launched more than a year ago.
The breakthrough accord that the U.N. and Turkey brokered with the warring sides last summer came with a separate agreement to ease shipments of Russian food and fertilizer that Moscow insists hasn't been applied.
Russia set a Thursday deadline for its concerns to be ironed out or it's bowing out. Such brinkmanship isn't new: With a similar extension in the balance in March, Russia unilaterally decided to renew the deal for just 60 days instead of the 120 days outlined in the agreement.
U.N. officials and analysts warn that a failure to extend the Black Sea Grain Initiative could hurt countries in Africa, the Middle East and parts of Asia that rely on Ukrainian wheat, barley, vegetable oil and other affordable food products, especially as drought takes a toll. The deal helped lower prices of food commodities like wheat over the last year, but that relief has not reached kitchen tables.
“If you have a cancellation of the grain deal again, when we’re already at a pretty tight situation, it’s just one more thing that the world doesn’t need, so the prices could start heading higher,” said William Osnato, a senior research analyst at agriculture data and analytics firm Gro Intelligence. “You don’t see relief on the horizon.”
U.N. humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths told the Security Council on Monday that the deal was “critical” and talks were ongoing.
Negotiators who gathered in Istanbul last week made little apparent headway. Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov said the grain deal “should be extended for a longer period of time and expanded” to “give predictability and confidence" to markets.
Moscow says it opposes broadening or indefinitely expanding the deal. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Tuesday that there's an “intense session of contacts” but that ”a decision is yet to be made.”
Russia, meanwhile, is rapidly shipping a bumper harvest of its wheat through other ports. Critics say that suggests Moscow is posturing or trying to wrest concessions in other areas — such as on Western sanctions — and claim it has dragging its heels on joint inspections of ships carried out by Russian, Ukrainian, U.N. and Turkish officials.
Average daily inspections — meant to ensure vessels carry only food and not weapons — have steadily dropped from a peak of 10.6 in October to 3.2 last month.
Russia denies slowing the work, with shipments of Ukrainian grain also declining in recent weeks.
“We cannot agree that the role of the Russian representative (inspector) should be reduced to automatic rubber-stamping, or approval, or appeals submitted by Kyiv,” Russia’s ambassador in Geneva, Gennady Gatilov, told reporters last month.
Asked whether a blockade of Ukraine's coast or more attacks on its ports could follow any withdrawal from the agreement, Gatilov said Russian authorities were “considering all possible scenarios if the deal is not extended.”
Russia has five main asks, according to Gatilov:
— A restoration of foreign supplies of farm machinery and replacement parts.
— A lifting of restrictions on insurance and access to foreign ports for Russian ships and cargo.
— Resumed operation of a pipeline that sends Russian ammonia, a key ingredient in fertilizer, to a Ukrainian Black Sea port.
— An end to restrictions on financial activities linked to Russia's fertilizer companies.
— Renewed access to the international SWIFT banking system for the Russian Agricultural Bank.
The U.N. says it's doing what it can, but those solutions mainly rest with the private sector, where it has little leverage.
The deal has allowed over 30 million metric tons of Ukrainian grain to be shipped, with more than half going to developing nations. China, Spain and Turkey are the biggest recipients, and Russia says that shows food isn't going to the poorest countries.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says Ukrainian corn for animal feed has headed to developed countries, while “a majority” of grain for people to eat has gone to emerging economies.
Even if a “meaningful part” of the shipments goes to developed nations, that “has a positive impact to all countries because it brings prices down," Guterres told reporters in Nairobi, Kenya, this month. "And when you bring prices down, everybody benefits.”
Osnato, the analyst, said markets aren't reacting to Russia’s threats to exit the deal, with wheat recently hitting two-year lows. If the agreement isn’t extended or negotiations drag on, the “loss of Ukraine grains wouldn’t be a disaster” for a month or two, he said.
He says there is “bluster” coming from Russia to push for easing some sanctions because it's shipping record amounts of wheat for the season, and its fertilizers are flowing well, too.
“It’s more about trying to get a little leverage, and they’re doing what they can to put themselves in a better negotiating position,” Osnato said.
Trade flows tracked by financial data provider Refinitiv show that Russia exported just over 4 million tons of wheat in April, the highest volume for the month in five years, following record or near-record highs in several previous months.
Exports since last July reached 32.2 million tons, 34% above the same period from last season, according to Refinitiv. It estimates Russia will ship 44 million tons of wheat in 2022-2023.
The issue is more pressing with Ukraine’s wheat harvest coming up in June and the need to sell that crop in July. Not having a Black Sea shipping corridor in place at that point would “start taking another large chunk of wheat and other grains off the market,” Osnato said.
Ukraine can send its food by land through Europe, so it wouldn’t be completely cut off from world markets, but those routes have a lower capacity than sea shipments and have stirred disunity in the European Union.
Uncertainties like drought in places including Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Syria and East Africa — big importers of food — are likely to keep food prices high, and an end to the U.N. deal wouldn't help.
“Any shock to the markets can cause massive harm with catastrophic ripple effects in countries balancing on the brink of famine," said Shashwat Saraf, emergency director for East Africa at the International Rescue Committee.
“The expiration of the Black Sea Grain Initiative is likely to trigger increased levels of hunger and malnutrition, spelling further disaster for East Africa,” Saraf said.
G-7 leaders likely to focus on the war in Ukraine and tensions in Asia at summit in Hiroshima
The symbolism will be palpable when leaders of the world's rich democracies sit down in Hiroshima, a city whose name evokes the tragedy of war, to tackle a host of challenges including Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and rising tensions in Asia.
The attention on the war in Europe comes just days after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy completed a whirlwind trip to meet many of the Group of Seven leaders now heading to Japan for the summit starting Friday. That tour was aimed at adding to his country's weapons stockpile and building political support ahead of a widely anticipated counteroffensive to reclaim lands occupied by Moscow's forces.
Also Read: G7 finance leaders vow to contain inflation, strengthen supply chains but avoid mention of China
“Ukraine has driven this sense of common purpose” for the G-7, said Matthew P. Goodman, senior vice president for economics at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
He said the new commitments Zelenskyy received just ahead of the summit could push members of the bloc to step up their support even further. “There’s a kind of peer pressure that develops in forums like this,” he explained.
G-7 leaders are also girding for the possibility of renewed conflict in Asia as relations with China deteriorate. They are increasingly concerned, among other things, about what they see as Beijing's growing assertiveness, and fear that China could 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.
Also Read: South Korea and Japan use G-7 to push improvement in ties long marked by animosity
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida also hopes to highlight the risks of nuclear proliferation during the meeting in Hiroshima, the site of the world’s first atomic bombing.
The prospect of another nuclear attack has been crystalized by nearby North Korea’s nuclear program and spate of recent missile tests, and Russia's threats to use nuclear weapons in its war in Ukraine. China, meanwhile, is rapidly expanding its nuclear arsenal from an estimated 400 warheads today to 1,500 by 2035, according to Pentagon estimates.
Concerns about the strength of the global economy, rising prices and the debt limit crisis in the U.S. will be high on leaders' minds.
G-7 finance ministers and central bank chiefs meeting ahead of the summit pledged to enforce sanctions against Russia, tackle rising inflation, bolster financial systems and help countries burdened by heavy debts.
Also Read: G7 countries should end supporting fossil fuels, accelerating transition to renewable energy: CPD
The G-7 includes the United States, Japan, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Canada and Italy, as well as the European Union.
That group is also lavishing more attention on the needs of the Global South — a term to describe mostly developing countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America — and has invited countries ranging from South American powerhouse Brazil to the tiny Cook Islands in the South Pacific.
By broadening the conversation beyond the world's richest industrialized nations, the group hopes to strengthen political and economic ties while shoring up support for efforts to isolate Russia and stand up to China's assertiveness around the world, analysts say.
“Japan was shocked when scores of developing countries were reluctant to condemn Russia for its invasion of Ukraine last year," said Mireya Solís, director of the Center for East Asian Policy Studies at The Brookings Institution. “Tokyo believes that this act of war by a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council is a direct threat to the foundations of the postwar international system.”
Getting a diverse set of countries to uphold principles like not changing borders by force advances Japan's foreign policy priorities, and makes good economic sense since their often unsustainable debt loads and rising prices for food and energy are a drag on the global economy, she continued.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will also be attending. His country, which is overtaking China as the world's most populous and sees itself as a rising superpower, is playing host to a meeting of the much broader group of G-20 leading economies later this year.
For host Kishida, this weekend's meeting is an opportunity to spotlight his country’s more robust foreign policy.
The Japanese prime minister made a surprise trip to Kyiv in March, making him the country's first postwar leader to travel to a war zone, a visit freighted with symbolism given Japan's pacifist constitution but one that he was under domestic pressure to take.
Another notable inclusion in Hiroshima is South Korea, a fellow U.S. ally that has rapidly drawn closer to its former colonial occupier Japan as their relations thawed in the face of shared regional security concerns.
U.S. President Joe Biden is expected to hold a separate three-way meeting with his Japanese and South Korean counterparts.
Sung-Yoon Lee, an East Asia expert at Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, said that meeting sends a message to China, Russia and North Korea of “solidarity among the democracies in the region and their resolve to stand up to the increasingly threatening autocracies.”
Biden had been expected to make a historic stop in Papua New Guinea and then travel onward to Australia after the Hiroshima meeting, but he scrapped those latter two stops Tuesday to focus on the debt limit debate back in Washington.
The centerpiece of the Australia visit was a meeting of the Quad, a regional security grouping that the U.S. sees as a counterweight to China’s actions in the region. Beijing has criticized the group as an Asian version of the NATO military alliance.
The decision to host the G-7 in Hiroshima is no accident. Kishida, whose family is from the city, hopes the venue will underscore Japan's “commitment to world peace” and build momentum to “realize the ideal of a world without nuclear weapons,” he wrote on the online news site Japan Forward.
The United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, destroying the city and killing 140,000 people, then dropped a second on Nagasaki three days later, killing another 70,000. Japan surrendered on Aug. 15, effectively ending World War II and decades of Japanese aggression in Asia.
The shell and skeletal dome of one of the riverside buildings that survived the Hiroshima blast are the focal point of the Peace Memorial Park, which leaders are expected to visit.
Russia launches ‘exceptional’ air attack in Kyiv with drones, missiles
Loud explosions sounded above Kyiv early Tuesday as Russia launched an intense air attack on the capital using a combination of missiles launched from the air, sea and land.
Russia's latest attack on Kyiv was “exceptional in its density — the maximum number of attacking missiles in the shortest period of time,” said Serhii Popko, the head of the Kyiv military administration.
It is the eighth time this month that Russian air raids have targeted the capital, a clear escalation after weeks of lull and ahead of a much-anticipated Ukrainian counter-offensive. It also comes as President Volodymyr Zelenksyy concludes a whirlwind European tour to greet Ukraine's key wartime allies, which spurred an additional tranche of pledged military aid.
Also Read: Zelenskyy's European tour aimed to replenish Ukraine's arsenal and build political support
“According to preliminary information the vast majority of enemy targets in the airspace of Kyiv were detected and destroyed,” said Popko.
Ukraine's Air Force said 18 missiles of various types were launched, including drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles. All were intercepted and shot down, said Air Force spokesman Yurii Ihnat.
Six “Kinzhal” aero-ballistic missiles were launched from MiG-31K aircraft, nine cruise missiles from ships in the Black Sea and three land-based S-400 cruise missiles targeted the capital, said Ihnat in a statement on Telegram.
After the first onslaught, Russia also launched Iranian-made Shahed attack drones and conducted aerial reconnaissance, Ihnat said.
Debris fell across several districts in the capital. In the Solomyansky district, causing a fire in a non-residential building. The fire was extinguished.
Debris set cars on fire and fell on the grounds of a zoo, but no losses were reported, said Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko.
Zelenskyy visits UK on European tour seeking military aid
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was visiting Britain on Monday, as the staunch ally of Ukraine prepares to give more military aid in an effort to change the course of the war.
The U.K. government confirmed Zelenskyy's arrival early Monday and said he would meet with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
It is the fourth European country Zelenskky has visited in the past few days. He made an unannounced visit to Paris on Sunday evening to meet French President Emmanuel Macron, after trips to Germany and Italy, where he met those countries' leaders and Pope Francis.
A message posted Monday on Zelenskyy's official Telegram Channel said: "Today — London. The UK is leading the way when it comes to expanding our capabilities on the ground and in the air. This cooperation will continue today. I will meet my friend Rishi. We will conduct substantive negotiations face-to-face and in delegations.”
Sunak's office confirmed the two leaders would meet at Chequers. the prime minister's country retreat outside London. It's Zelenskyy's second trip to the U.K. since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
The U.K. has become one of Ukraine's major military allies, sending Kyiv short-range missiles and Challenger tanks and training 15,000 Ukrainian troops on British soil. Last week Britain announced it had sent Ukraine Storm Shadow cruise missiles, which have a range of more than 250 kilometers (150 miles) — the first known shipment of the weaponry that Kyiv has long sought from its allies.
Sunak's office said that on Monday Britain will confirm it is giving Ukraine hundreds more air defense missiles, as well as “long-range attack drones" with a range of more than 200 kilometers (120 miles).
“This is a crucial moment in Ukraine’s resistance to a terrible war of aggression they did not choose or provoke," Sunak said. "They need the sustained support of the international community to defend against the barrage of unrelenting and indiscriminate attacks that have been their daily reality for over a year.
“We must not let them down.”
Russia stepped up attacks across Ukraine with drones and missiles over the weekend. On Sunday, Russia shelled two communities in the northern border region of Sumy, the region’s military administration said in a statement on its official Telegram channel. It said 109 explosions were recorded.
Zelenskyy toured European capitals over the weekend to seek more aid as Ukraine prepares a long-anticipated spring offensive to retake territory seized by Russia.
Zelenskyy and Macron met for about three hours at the French presidential Elysee Palace — an encounter kept under wraps until shortly before the Ukrainian leader’s arrival in Paris.
Macron’s office said France will supply dozens of light tanks and armored vehicles “in the weeks ahead,” without giving specific numbers. Also promised were more air defense systems, but again details weren’t made public.
More Ukrainians will also be made battle-ready, with France aiming to train about 2,000 Ukrainian soldiers in France this year and nearly 4,000 others in Poland as part of a wider European effort, Macron’s office said.
France has supplied Ukraine with an array of weaponry, include air defense systems, light tanks, howitzers and other arms and equipment and fuel.
France had dispatched a plane to pick up Zelenskyy in Germany, where he met with Chancellor Olaf Scholz earlier Sunday and discussed his country’s planned counteroffensive.
It was his first visit to Berlin since the start of the invasion and came a day after the German government announced a new package of military aid for Ukraine worth more than 2.7 billion euros ($3 billion), including tanks, anti-aircraft systems and ammunition.
After initially hesitating to provide Ukraine with lethal weapons, Germany has become one of the biggest suppliers of arms to Ukraine, including Leopard 1 and 2 battle tanks, and the sophisticated IRIS-T SLM air defense system. Modern Western hardware is considered crucial if Ukraine is to succeed in its planned counteroffensive.
In the western German city of Aachen, Zelenskyy also received the prestigious International Charlemagne Prize, awarded to him and the people of Ukraine.
On Saturday. he met Francis and Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni in Rome.
On the European trip, Zelenskyy said it will aim to liberate Russian-occupied areas within Ukraine’s internationally recognized borders, and not attack Russian territory.
The Washington Post cited previously undisclosed documents from a trove of U.S. intelligence leaks suggesting that Zelenskyy has considered trying to capture areas in Russia proper for possible use as bargaining chips in peace negotiations to end the war launched by Moscow in February 2022. This would put him at odds with Western governments that have insisted that weapons they provide must not be used to attack targets in Russia.
Asked about the report, Zelenskyy said: “We don’t attack Russian territory, we liberate our own legitimate territory.”
“We have neither the time nor the strength (to attack Russia),” he said, according to an official interpreter. “And we also don’t have weapons to spare with which we could do this.”
“We are preparing a counterattack for the illegally occupied areas based on our constitutionally defined legitimate borders, which are recognized internationally,” Zelenskyy said.
Among areas still occupied by Russia are the Crimean peninsula and parts of eastern Ukraine with mainly Russian-speaking populations.
War in Ukraine, disasters left 71mn people internally displaced in 2022: Report
The war in Ukraine helped push the global total of people left internally displaced by conflict or natural disasters to a record high of 71.1 million last year, according to a report released Thursday by the Norwegian Refugee Council’s Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre.
By the end of 2022, 5.9 million people had been forced to move inside Ukraine because of Russia's invasion, bringing the global total of people internally displaced by conflict and violence to more than 62 million, an increase of 17% since 2021. Syria had 6.8 million displaced by conflict after more than a decade of civil war.
The number of people displaced inside their country at the end of the year because of disasters like floods and famine reached 8.7 million, up by 45% from 2021.
The total of 71.1 million internally displaced worldwide was a 20% increase since 2021.
Internal displacement refers to people forced to move inside their own borders and the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre's report didn’t take into account those who left for different countries.
Also read: Ukraine's occupied nuke plant faces possible staffing crunch
Following a year when conflict raged in Ukraine, Syria, Ethiopia and elsewhere, there has been no respite in 2023. The United Nations migration agency said this week that 700,000 people have already been internally displaced in a matter of weeks by the conflict in Sudan between the army and a rival paramilitary group.
The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre cited the La Nina weather phenomenon, which continued for a third consecutive year in 2022, as a major factor in disaster displacements. It contributed to record levels of flood displacement in Pakistan, Nigeria and Brazil and to the worst drought on record in Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia, the report said.
There was a “perfect storm” of conflict and natural disasters in 2022, leading to “displacement on a scale never seen before,” said Jan Egeland, secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council.
EU, Ukraine together on Europe Day, but Kyiv remains outside
For the first time, Ukraine and the European Union are marking Europe Day, that celebration of “peace and unity,” together. Don’t let anyone be fooled too much, though.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, the head of the EU's executive branch, made a special trip to Kyiv on Tuesday to deliver the warm words of common destiny after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that his nation would from now on “celebrate Europe Day together with all of free Europe."
More than a year into the war with invading Russia, Ukraine wants to badly join the bloc as an essential part to anchor its future in the Western world. “Europe Day,” when the 27 current members celebrate their bond as one, also shows how far that moment is still off.
Also Read: Putin tells Red Square parade ‘real war’ unleashed on Russia
Next month, it will be one year already since the EU nations granted Ukraine candidate status, lavished the nation with praise, boosted it with aid and military support and sanctioned Kyiv’s enemy Russia with ever more sanctions. Some leaders often dress in the blue and yellow of Ukraine’s national flag and “Slava Ukraini,” which means Glory to Ukraine, ends all so many EU speeches.
Yet, frustration on the Ukraine side is evident, because the beginning of membership negotiations is still out of sight. Weary and hoarse, dressed in army olive-drab, Zelenskyy visited the Netherlands last week with a heartfelt plea for a “positive assessment” to start the talks.
“We do all our best during the war. We do all the reforms what we have to do,” he told the host, one of the original six EU members dating back to 1958.
Time, however, is an extremely flexible concept in the EU, and patience an essential one.
Also Read: Ukraine’s Zelenskyy convinced Putin will face court justice
“I am absolutely impressed by what the president’s team is doing,” Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said, with Zelenskyy standing beside him. “Fighting a war against Russia and at the same time making concrete steps in terms of clearing the way in terms of this whole process towards EU accession.”
Then he fell back on the time-set mechanics of the EU, which foresees the next assessment in about a half-year, in October. All this to a leader who is counting in weeks and months when his nation might be on the road to victory — or ruin.
The best advice, though, is for Ukraine to stay the course.
“A promise has been made and in essence it is now in the hands of Ukraine. The EU cannot postpone things forever,” said Ghent University Professor Hendrik Vos, an expert on EU decision making.
But unexpected things can happen, as suddenly overflowing cereal silos in several eastern EU nations proved early this spring. To help Ukraine export its grain, sunflower and other farm produce after Russia closed off the Black Sea route, the EU lifted trade restrictions to give a free passage through the bloc and hopefully on to needy world markets.
Yet in neighboring nations like Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and Romania, stocks built up, prices plummeted and that extremely vocal and influential group of voters — the EU’s 10 million farmers — started grumbling, indicating that membership promises are about much more than just sentimental shows of support.
“Of course we have solidarity with Ukraine,” said Christine Lambert, the president of the COPA EU farmers union, “but there are also significant economic aspects to this,” adding that “it’s sort of creating a hole in our budget. It will result in problems and farmers can’t bear these problems alone.”
Apart from making sure that France and Germany never go to war again, the founding principles of the EU also included avoiding hunger in the bloc in the wake of World War II. It allowed farming to take on an exceptionally important role in EU policies and even now it takes up almost a third of the EU’s designated budget.
The war and climate change have put EU farmers increasingly in a squeeze and taking in — and on — a nation like Ukraine, which is historically seen as the breadbasket of Europe, would be especially challenging.
Before the war, Ukraine still had a major stake in the global market of wheat, barley, corn and sunflower oil. Farming accounted for more than 40% of exports.
Opening up to such competition strikes fear in the hearts of many farmers, especially if it comes within a few years. Lambert pointed out how EU farmers need to meet tough environmental and social rules, which Ukrainians so far don't have to comply with.
Once Ukraine joins, it will in principle have the whole market of the current 27 nations at its disposal, but it will also need to abide by EU rules. And Vos said that goes right down to the size of chicken battery cages to meet animal welfare standards.
“Farmers will be saying they don’t want unfair competition from big Ukraine chicken farms that don’t have to play by the rules,” Vos said.
And Ukraine will only be able to join if it gets major financial aid from the current members to rebuild its nation and upgrade to EU standards. It will turn many of the EU nations that now get money from EU coffers into net contributors. Little wonder many in the EU push any membership date into the unspecified future yonder.
“Many years. We’ll need that time to see that obligations are satisfied,” Lambert said.
Such considerations from a small group of stakeholders won’t stop the groundswell of history though. In the EU’s successive sweeps of expansion, short-term financial losses never stood in the way in the end.
When the Iberian Peninsula wrested itself free from dictatorship during the 1970s, poor and needy Spain and Portugal were embraced in the EU a decade later despite the cost.
When the Berlin Wall came down and the Soviet Union collapsed in the early 1990s, the EU took in eight eastern nations in 2004, also at a major cost to the existing members.
Each time, talks on nitty gritty issues went on deep into countless nights but eventually compromises were found — more money was given to grumbling members, sometimes long transition times imposed.
Russia's war in Ukraine could well be an equal watershed in EU history.
“At a certain point there is no way back. The groundbreaking decision has been taken. There can be incremental talks about money until the end. But they won’t stop it,” Vos said.