Ukrainian diplomats have been left frustrated – and in some cases embittered – at Donald Trump’s refusal to make Ukraine a priority after Volodymyr Zelenskyy flew 5,000 miles to the G7 conference in Canada only for the US president to return home the night before the two leaders were due to meet. Trump said he needed to focus on the Israel-Iran conflict.
In a further blow for Kyiv the US vetoed a joint statement on Ukraine from the summit, on the grounds that the wording was too anti-Russian and could compromise negotiations with Vladimir Putin.
Instead, some of the language around the war will be included in Canadian prime minister Mark Carney’s “chair’s statement”.
Some Ukrainian officials said they were not sure now if it will be worth Zelenskyy attending the Nato summit in The Hague next week since there was no guarantee that Trump would attend.
One said: “It is an permanent hazard that Ukraine is a victim of events and Trump’s short attention span. Vladimir Putin knows that, which may be why there was such a large attack in Ukraine last night. There had been all sorts of promises for this summit – including new US arms deliveries being offered.” Ukraine was proposing to buy US weapons including new air defences, so getting round the Trump complaint that Ukraine is a drain on the US budget.
The German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, said Trump had promised to attend the Nato summit.
With the US chair at the G7 summit removed, Zelenskyy instead sat down with the other members of the group at a special session dedicated to Ukraine, but the central purpose of the session – to try to enlist Trump’s support to put pressure on Putin to agree a ceasefire – had been nullified by the US president’s abrupt departure announced to fellow G7 leaders in the afternoon. Zelenskyy was also due to have a one to one meeting with Trump.
The sense of upset, impossible for Ukraine to express in public due to the need to retain Trump’s support, was intensified by the fact that Zelenskyy was being relayed news of Russia’s massive attack across Ukraine as he flew by plane to the meeting in Canada.
As he met the G7 host, Canada’s Mark Carney, Zelenskyy made no direct reference to Trump’s decision to absent himself. Looking downbeat, he said: “We need the help of our allies to for our soldiers to stay strong until Russia is ready for peace negotiations.”
He stressed: “We are ready for an unconditional ceasefire.”
Zelenskyy had billed that the G7 summit as one of two golden chances to apply collective western pressure on Trump, and to discuss Ukraine’s plans to buy as much as $30bn to $50bn worth of air defense systems and weapons from the United States as a form of security guarantees.
There had been signals that the US was willing to sell the arms to Ukraine, but Trump – who spoke again to Putin this week – sometimes argues that providing Ukraine with arms will only prolong a war he is committed to ending.
Zelenskyy had also been seeking US agreement to a cut in the oil cap from $60 a barrel to $45 in a bid to cut Russian oil revenues. The oil price cap requiring complex enforcement was introduced by G7 nations and it would need at least tacit US support for it to be instituted effectively.
Although there has been a recent spike in the price of oil due to the Iranian crisis, the debate around lowering the price cap had become centre stage due to the slow fall in the price of oil. The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, acknowledged the immediate pressure to lower the cap had been reduced.
In discussions at the summit, Trump on Monday expressed reluctance to impose any further sanctions, saying Europeans should “do it first” and that “sanctions cost us a lot of money, billions and billions of dollars”.
Keir Starmer meanwhile pushed for allies to tighten the oil price cap on Russia and announced sanctions on 20 Russian oil tankers as well as new measures targeting companies managing the vessels, Downing Street said on Tuesday.
Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Canada, the British prime minister said he “strongly” believed that restrictions on the price of Russian crude oil should be strengthened to deplete its energy revenues.
On the way to the G7, Zelenskyy had visited Austria to recruit the country as another potential mediator in the conflict with Russia. Austria has strong ties with Russia, and is seen by some Ukrainian leaders as a more trustworthy intermediary than Turkey, which has much to gain commercially from a peace settlement.
Speaking in Brussels, the EU foreign affairs chief, Kaja Kallas, addressed the latest Russian attacks, saying: “Russia remains unrelenting in its attacks, targeting civilians and prolonging its war. This is yet another sign: Russia is just not interested in peace, so we must keep up the pressure.”
The EU is close to agreeing an 18th package of sanctions that will include a ban on the importation of Russian oil refined by third-party countries and then exported to Europe. The EU plan intends to designate oil as Russian and therefore banned unless the importer has clear documentation demonstrating it has originated elsewhere. Countries will also have to publish new “diversification plans” showing how they will end reliance on both Russian oil and gas.
Kallas is convinced that although sanctions have taken longer than expected to have an impact, a corner has been turned.
She said last week: “Russia has lost tens of billions in oil revenues. Its economy is shrinking, and its GDP has dropped.” Sanctioning the “shadow fleet” [of unflagged Russian tankers] has been particularly impactful: after our last sanctions package, the 17th sanctions package, the oil exports from Russia via the Black Sea and Baltic Sea routes declined by 30% in a week.
“Only in the month of May, Russia’s sovereign wealth fund declined by $6bn, from $42bn to $36bn, and it could run out of money by next year. By cutting off revenue streams, we prevent them from refilling their war chest”.
