The G7 summit began with new sanctions on Russia and a call for unity

This was announced on Sunday by the leaders of the G7 countries new sanctions against Russia and called for the unity of the group, 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, a major export source, which will deprive Russia of billions of dollars“tweeted US President Joe Biden.

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

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

The sanctions

Russia is a major gold producer whose exports accounted for approximately $ 15,500 million in 2021, according to Downing Street.

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

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will attend the summit electronically on Mondays.

Western countries have slapped Russia with unusually harsh economic sanctions, seemingly undaunted by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is steadily upping the ante in a war with no end in sight.

the Ukrainian government believes that sanctions are not enough and calls for a further punishment from Russia, which bombed the Ukrainian capital again on Sunday. An act that Biden called “barbarian”.

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

Vladimir Putin was expected “that, in one way or another, NATO and G7 were divided”Biden said. “But we didn’t and we won’t,” she added.

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

Faced with the advance of Russian troops in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, Johnson agreed with French President Emmanuel Macron that “It was a critical moment in the evolution of the conflict and that it was possible to reverse the tide of the war, “according to a spokesman for the British government.

NO to the negotiation

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

The conflict and its consequences will be discussed extensively at the summit which will last 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 look with concern to China, which is emerging as a systemic rival.

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

Indeed, to cultivate alliances outside their own area, the G7 has invited the leaders of Argentina, India, Indonesia, Senegal and South Africa.

Argentina and Indonesia supported the UN votes against Russia, 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 limited its grain exports.

Climate activists, for their part, expect the G7 to make concrete progress, like having an agenda to be totally eliminated the use of fossil fuels.

Greenpeace will remember this urgency by waving a banner atop the Zugspitze, the highest point in Germany, overlooking Elmau.

Summit sessions will be complemented by bilateral meetings. The first will be between Biden and the German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, two leaders facing difficulties in their countries.

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

And Biden arrives as president of an affected country due to an inflationary spike and divided by the sentence of the Supreme Court which abrogated the right to abortion in the federal sphere.

Source: AFP and AP

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