G7 leaders discuss new punishment for Russia over Ukraine in Hiroshima

Hiroshima: Leaders of the world’s most powerful democracies huddled Friday to discuss new ways to punish Russia for its 15-month invasion of Ukraine, days before President Volodymyr Zelenskyy joins the Group of Seven summit in person on Sunday.

Zelenskyy will be making his furthest trip from of his war-torn country as leaders are set to unveil new sanctions on Russia for its invasion. Oleksiy Danilov, the secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council, confirmed on national television that Zelenskyy would attend the summit.

“We were sure that our president would be where Ukraine needed him, in any part of the world, to solve the issue of stability of our country,” Danilov said Friday.

“There will be very important matters decided there, so physical presence is a crucial thing to defend our interests”.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s nuclear threats against Ukraine, along with North Korea’s months-long barrage of missile tests and China’s rapidly expanding

nuclear arsenal, have resonated with Japan’s push to make nuclear disarmament a major part of the summit.

World leaders on Friday visited a peace park dedicated to the tens of thousands who died in the world’s first wartime atomic bomb detonation.

Japanese leader Fumio Kishida said he invited Zelenskyy to the G7 Summit during his visit to Kyiv in March.

Zelenskyy is also set to appear virtually at a Friday meeting of G7 leaders, where they are to be updated

on battlefield conditions and agree to toughen their efforts to constrain Moscow’s war effort.

After group photos near the city’s iconic bombed-out dome, a wreath-laying and a symbolic tree

planting, a new round of sanctions were to be unveiled against Moscow, with a focus on redoubling efforts to enforce existing sanctions meant to stifle Russia’s war effort and hold accountable those behind it, a US official said.

Russia is now the most-sanctioned country in the world, but there are questions about the effectiveness of the financial penalties.

The US official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to preview the announcement, said the US component of the actions would blacklist about 70 Russian and third-country entities involved in Russia’s defence

production, and sanction more than 300 individuals, entities, aircraft and

vessels.