G7 summit in Germany opens with new sanctions on Russia and a call for unity

The leaders of the G7 countries announced this Sunday new sanctions against Russia and called for group unity, on the first day of a summit in Germany largely devoted to the war in Ukraine.

“Together, the G7 will announce that we will ban Russian gold, one of the main sources of export, which will deprive Russia of billions of dollars”tweeted the US president Joe Biden.

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Pending a collective announcement at the end of the meeting on Tuesday, The United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and Japan have gone ahead and announced an embargo on newly mined gold in Russia.

“These measures will directly hit the Russian oligarchs and hit the center of Putin’s war machine”, declared British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

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Russia is a major gold producer whose exports accounted for about 15.5 billion dollars in 2021, according to Downing Street.

The leaders of the major economic powers — the United States, Canada, Japan, Germany, France, Italy, the United Kingdom — meet for three days in the Bavarian castle of Elmau.

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the ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskywill participate in the summit electronically on Monday.

Risk of “fatigue”

Western countries have punished Russia with economic sanctions of rare harshness, without apparently daunting the Russian president Vladimir Putinconstantly upping the ante in a war with no end in sight.

The Ukrainian government considers that the sanctions are not enough and asks to further punish Russia, which again bombed the Ukrainian capital on Sunday. An act that Biden described as “barbaric”.

The US leader called for the unity of the G7 and NATO in the face of Moscow’s offensive.

Vladimir Putin he expected “that, one way or another, NATO and the G7 would split up,” Biden said. “But we haven’t and we won’t,” he added.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, however, warned of the risk of “fatigue” in Western countries.

Given the advance of Russian troops in the region of the donbasin the east of UkraineJohnson agreed with French President Emmanuel Macron that “this was a critical moment in the evolution of the conflict and that it was possible to change the course of the war,” according to a British government spokesman.

Without negotiating a solution “now”

However, Johnson warned the French president that a negotiated solution “now” in Ukraine could prolong “world instability.”

The conflict and its consequences will be widely discussed at the summit that runs until Tuesday, but other challenges will also be addressed, such as the threat of recession and environmental crises caused by climate change.

And beyond the current situation of tensions with Russia, Western countries are looking with concern at China, which is emerging as a systemic rival.

The G7 wants to counteract the Asian giant and its “New Silk Roads” by investing massively in the infrastructure of the countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America. The leaders will take stock of this project on Sunday.

In fact, to nurture alliances outside its area, the G7 invited the leaders of Argentina, India, Indonesia, Senegal and South Africa to its summit.

Argentina and Indonesia supported the votes against Russia at the UN, but the other guests abstained.

But everyone is worried about the threat of a hunger crisis caused by the blockade of Ukraine’s grain exports. Faced with this risk, India has already restricted its own grain exports.

internal difficulties

Climate activists, for their part, hope that the G7 make concrete progress, such as having an agenda to completely eliminate the use of fossil fuels.

Greenpeace will remember this urgency by unfurling a banner on top of the Zugspitze, the highest point in Germany, which overlooks Elmau.

The summit sessions will be supplemented by bilateral meetings. The first will be between Biden and the German chancellor, Olaf Scholztwo leaders facing difficulties in their own countries.

Scholz and his partners have become since the invasion of Ukraine firefighters of all the geopolitical, economic and financial fires caused by the war.

And Biden arrives as president of a country affected by soaring inflation and divided by the Supreme Court ruling that struck down the right to abortion in the federal framework.

Source: Elcomercio

Ronald Payne

I, Ronald Payne, am a journalist and author who dedicated his life to telling the stories that need to be said. I have over 7 years of experience as a reporter and editor, covering everything from politics to business to crime.