Diamonds, oil, gas… in the G7, new sanctions against Russia

The United States has decided on “significant” new sanctions targeting the “Russian war machine”, a senior US official said on Friday, shortly before the start of the G7 summit in Hiroshima (western Japan), at which President Joe Biden will attend.

The US initiative comes at a time when leaders of major industrialized democracies, especially Japan, must agree on toughening up against Russia and find a common line in the face of China’s growing military and economic power.

According to a senior Biden administration official, the US measures are aimed at “significantly restricting access to products essential to Russia’s combat capabilities”.

export barriers

Citing more than 300 new sanctions against “individuals, organizations, ships and aircraft” across Europe, the official said, “They will prevent about 70 entities in Russia and other countries from receiving US exported goods, placing them under the Commerce Department’s Will add to the blacklist.” Middle East and Asia.

Other members of the G7 – which brings together the United States, Japan, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Italy and Canada – are also preparing to “implement new sanctions and barriers to exports”. he specified.

The G7 will work to eliminate loopholes that have disrupted Russian military supplies, eliminate sanctions, further reduce its dependence on Russian energy, continue to restrict Moscow’s access to the international financial system, and hold Russia until the end of the war. Will commit to freezing assets, this source assured.

Suspense around Zelensky

An EU official announced on Thursday that the G7 talks will focus on Russia DiamondWhich every year brings several billion dollars to Moscow.

“We believe in limiting the export of Russian business in this area,” the source said. DiamondS, will also be critical to the success of any new approach.

G7 leaders will be able to present their case directly to Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India, whose country has close military ties with Russia, and who has refused to condemn Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

India is the third of eight countries whose leaders were invited to the Hiroshima summit: for the G7 to try to unite some of the reluctant states to oppose Russia’s war in Ukraine and growing military ambitions from Beijing a way of

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is expected to speak via video conference over the weekend. The Japanese government ruled out his personal visit, but speculation remained.

The G7 talks will officially begin on Friday afternoon Japanese time, following a visit by the leaders to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park.

Heads of state and government will lay a wreath in front of the memorial in Hiroshima, which remembers the nearly 140,000 people killed by the US atomic bomb on August 6, 1945.

Japanese dream of disarmament

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said on Thursday, “I hope that here in Hiroshima, the leaders of the G7 and other countries will show their commitment to a peace that history will remember.”Family and political roots in Hiroshima and who would like to keep nuclear disarmament on the agenda

This moment of reflection should however remain symbolic as the United States, United Kingdom and France possess thousands of nuclear warheads, and other G7 members including Japan are covered by a “nuclear umbrella”.

Expectations of progress in disarmament have further diminished in the context of rising tensions with other nuclear powers such as Russia, North Korea and China.

Mr Biden would become only the second US president to visit Hiroshima, but he is unlikely to apologize to Japan like Barack Obama did in 2016.

Besides Ukraine, the agenda will also be dominated by China and the diversification of G7 countries’ supply chains to guard against the risk of “economic coercion” from Beijing.

“We want to organize global supply, trade and investment relations in such a way that dependence on a few countries does not increase risks,” Chancellor Olaf said on Thursday, without mentioning China.

(with AFP)