Washington supports international efforts to train Ukrainian pilots in modern fighters such as F-16. His message yesterday Joe Biden to their allies USA within the G7 is the first sign that Washington will lift its reservations and finally provide Kyiv with F-16s, as the Ukrainian president has constantly asked for. Vladimir Zelensky. In the coming months, discussions are expected on how to supply fighter jets either directly from the United States to Ukraine, or through European countries that have them. Meanwhile, new sanctions aimed at “depriving Russia of technology, industrial equipment and services supporting its military operations” against Ukraine were determined by G7 leaders at a summit that began yesterday and will end tomorrow in Hiroshima, Japan. According to a draft joint communiqué leaked to the international press, the new measures by the seven most powerful industrialized countries in the West include restricting the export of goods “Russia needs on the battlefield” as well as restricting organizations that send military materials on behalf of Moscow.

In addition, leaders in North America, Japan and major European economies are pledging to fill gaps in Ukraine’s 2023 and early 2024 government budgets and limit trade in diamonds mined or processed in Russia.

Volodymyr Zelensky is expected to attend the Hiroshima summit as a guest. Diplomatic sources said the Ukrainian president will travel to Japan on a French government plane, which has already flown him to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, to attend the Arab League summit. On the sidelines of the G7, Zelensky will hold a one-on-one meeting with foreign leaders, including Indian President Narendra Modi. India, like other states, participates in the meeting as an invitee and represents the most friendly power to Russia, represented in Hiroshima.

In Jeddah, Zelensky held private meetings with the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, with whom he also discussed the possible contribution of the kingdom to the reconstruction of his country after the end of hostilities. At the forum, he did not hesitate to reproach “some” Arab states for “turning a blind eye” to the Russian invasion of his country. “I am more than sure that none of you will agree to give up a third of your country to the occupiers,” Zelensky said, while insisting on the need to respect the rights of the Tatar minority in Russian-controlled Crimea. The exiled leader of the Tatars, Mustafa Dzhemilev, accompanied him to the Arab council.

For his part, Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday accused the West of trying to sow discord among Russia’s various ethnic groups with the strategic goal of breaking it up into “a dozen” smaller states. On the same day, one of his closest aides, Secretary of the National Security Council Nikolai Patrushev, accused the US of orchestrating the recent assassinations on Russian soil of two supporters of the Russian invasion, Alexander Dugin’s daughter and a militant blogger, and of sabotage. along the Kerch Bridge in Crimea and the Russian Nord Stream gas pipeline in the Baltic. According to Patrushev, all such attacks were “planned and carried out in agreement with the American intelligence services.”

New G7 sanctions against Russia – Zelensky’s intervention in the Arab League and the Hiroshima summit.

Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishutin will visit Beijing next week. Meanwhile, China’s deputy envoy to the UN, Geng Shuang, has criticized the continued flow of weapons systems from the West to Ukraine, arguing that it only leads to an escalation of the war and more bloodshed.

Chinese Special Representative for Ukraine Li Hui these days is on a tour that starts from Kyiv. Yesterday, Li met in Warsaw with Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Wojciech Gerwel, who asked him to influence Beijing on Moscow to end the war.

Violent attacks

In Ukraine itself, for the second night in a row, Russians have been shelling Kyiv and other cities with rockets, drones and artillery shells. At the same time, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu was visiting Zaporozhye and inspecting his forces, which are expected to be quickly attacked by the Ukrainians. Meanwhile, fighting continued with unabated intensity yesterday in Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine, the main target of the Russian attack since November.