The G7 leaders have promised to introduce new financial and economic sanctions against Russia so that it will be “burned out” for lack of access to Western technologies.
At the same time, they called on Moscow to end “the illegal, unjustifiable and unprovoked war of aggression in Ukraine.
The leaders of the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Canada and Japan met in Hiroshima, Japan on Friday to coordinate their policies in an attempt to end the conflict in Ukraine.
In a joint statement, the G7 members reaffirmed their “commitment to providing Ukraine with the financial, humanitarian, military and diplomatic assistance it needs”.
“We are introducing new sanctions and measures to increase the cost to Russia and those who support its war effort,” the statement said. “We are taking steps to support our partners around the world in their efforts to overcome the suffering caused by the Russian war, including through humanitarian assistance.
“We will continue to restrict Russia’s access to our countries’ economies,” the G7 members said.
They promised to extend measures to restrict the export of all war-related goods, including those used by Russia on the battlefield, to all G7 jurisdictions.
They also promised to “target more” those working in key sectors such as manufacturing, construction, transport and business services.
“We will exhaust Russia from the lack of technology, industrial equipment and services of the G7 countries that support its war machine,” the statement said. “We will continue to prevent the evasion and circumvention of our measures against Russia, including targeting structures that deliver materials to the front.”
The G7 has pledged to work to further restrict Russia’s access to the international financial system in order to continue the war in Ukraine.
An unnamed US administration official said the United States alone would blacklist about 70 organizations from Russia and third countries associated with the Russian defense industry.
In addition, more than 300 natural and legal persons, aircraft and ships will fall under US sanctions. Other G7 countries will also announce their measures this week.
According to the official, these measures should further reduce Russia’s ability to obtain equipment and war materials, close loopholes to circumvent sanctions and reduce Europe’s dependence on Russian energy. .
According to the Atlantic Council Geoeconomics Center, the mostly European G7 exports goods to Russia worth $4.7 billion a month, or about 43% of pre-invasion volumes in Ukraine.
The US Treasury Department has named four ways for sanctioned Russians to escape: using close relatives or associates, using real estate to store assets, using complex structures to conceal ownership and the transfer of assets to countries that have not imposed sanctions against Russia.
More than 4,800 Russian natural and legal persons have already been subject to multilateral sanctions, including President Vladimir Putin, his ex-wife, the head of Wagner PMC, the Kremlin spokesman and his family members, etc. .
Seth Bridge, coordinator of the Treasury Department’s task force on Russian elites, intermediaries and oligarchs, said the G7 had blocked or frozen sanctioned Russian assets totaling more than $58 billion since the start of the war.
Read the Ukraine War News Latest Today on The Eastern Herald.
