Ukraine war briefing: Kyiv’s allies push for peace at G7 summit in France
Leaders urge Donald Trump to stand behind Ukraine and pressure Putin to negotiate; Russia allows sale of substandard fuel amid supply crisis. What we know
Leaders urge Donald Trump to stand behind Ukraine and pressure Putin to negotiate; Russia allows sale of substandard fuel amid supply crisis. What we know on day 1,574 World leaders were lining up in support of Ukraine and Volodymyr Zelenskyy as the G7 summit began in France. Keir Starmer, the British prime minister, vowed to “choke off” Russian revenue with further sanctions, writes Alexandra Topping, and to provide hundreds of millions of pounds worth of energy support for Ukraine including enriched uranium for its nuclear power plants. Summit host Emmanuel Macron, the French president, said as he prepared to meet with Donald Trump that he wanted the US to say “we are with you, we will continue to support Ukraine, and we will increase the pressure on Russia to achieve a meaningful negotiation … The right negotiation is one in which Ukraine and Russia are at the table, but with Europeans and Americans present as well.” Germany’s chancellor, Friedrich Merz, expressed hope that “for the first time, a window can open for diplomacy” on ending the war in Ukraine, Reuters reported.
He added that he wanted to discuss this further with Trump. The US president, who arrived for the summit on Monday, said: “We had a very good conversation yesterday with President Zelenskyy and President Putin, and I think maybe we can do something there. I really do. I think they’re both open to it.” A drone set fire to an oil depot in the Poltavskaya area of Russia’s southern Krasnodar region, authorities said on Tuesday morning. The regional officials said they closed a local road leading to the bridge across the Kerch strait linking Crimea to the Krasnodar region. On Monday, Ukraine hit two bridges connecting the Russian-held part of Ukraine’s Kherson region with Crimea.
In the Krasnodar region itself, a popular summer tourist destination, disruptions to fuel supplies have triggered panic-buying, the regional governor said last week. A Russian Tu-22M3 strategic bomber plane of the type used to attack Ukraine crashed on Monday in Siberia’s Irkutsk region during a training flight, the Russian defence ministry said. The aircraft’s four-person crew ejected safely, the ministry said. The bombers are used to fire cruise and ballistic missiles at Ukraine. Volodymyr Zelenskyy said two Russian drones “deliberately” targeted Kyiv’s monastery quarter in a mass overnight barrage that set the Unesco-listed Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra site ablaze and killed 11 across the country. Amid a chorus of international condemnation, Zelenskyy described the cathedral attack as “one of Russia’s most serious crimes against Christian culture to date” and urged G7 leaders meeting in France on Monday to take “decisive and substantive” action against Moscow.
The BriefWire