U.S. and G7 Allies Pledge Support For Ukraine "As Long As It Takes"

The G7 Leaders on Monday pledged to continue providing support for Ukraine "for as long as it takes" in a joint statement at their  summit, TURAN's Washington correspondent reports.

"We will continue to provide financial, humanitarian, military and diplomatic support and stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes," the G7 statement on support for Ukraine reads.

The leaders also said it would be up to Ukraine to determine a diplomatic path ahead: "We are committed to helping Ukraine to uphold its sovereignty and territorial integrity, to defend itself, and to choose its own future. It is up to Ukraine to decide on a future peace settlement, free from external pressure or influence," reads the statement.

The leaders said they would work together to help Ukraine defend itself once the war ends.

Speaking to reporters, a senior Biden administration official said, G7's support for Ukraine, "will include significant new sanctions commitments to further intensify our economic measures against Russia"

"As you  know, the United States has rallied over 30 allies and partners around the world to impose drastic historic costs on Russia.

It was reported overnight that Russia defaulted on its sovereign debt for the first time in more than a century. So, in the span of a few months, U.S. exports to Russia, including of critical technology inputs that Putin needs to maintain his military, those have decreased 97 percent.  Russia’s imports of goods from around the world could fall by as much as 40 percent this year", the official said.

"Factories across Russia are struggling to maintain production. Russia’s GDP is likely to fall by double digits this year, and inflation is rising to over 20 percent," the official added.

Today, the U.S. and its allies are announcing the followings:

First - G7 leaders decided to urgently direct relevant ministers to develop mechanisms to set a global price cap for Russian oil in shipments to countries outside of the U.S., EU, the UK, and the broader G7.

"The goal here is to starve Putin of his main source of cash and force down the price of Russian oil to help blunt the impact of Putin’s war at the pump" the official said. "We have dual objectives here.  The dual objectives of G7 leaders have been to take direct aim at Putin’s revenues, particularly through energy, but also to minimize the spillovers and the impact on the G7 economies and the rest of the world."

And G7 leaders are going to acknowledge those two objectives and also acknowledge that the path forward is to urgently direct ministers to work on achieving a price cap, which can, in our judgement, best achieve both of those objectives simultaneously.

Secondly, G7 leaders will align and expand targeted sanctions to further restrict Russia’s access to key industrial inputs, to services and technologies produced by our economies, particularly those supporting Russia’s armament industrial base and technology sector.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Departments of State and Treasury will aggressively target Russian defense supply chains by imposing blocking sanctions on major state-owned defense enterprises, in addition to defense research organizations, and dozens of other defense-related entities and individuals, and limit Russia’s ability to replace the military equipment it has already lost during its brutal war against Ukraine.

"We will align on using tariffs on Russian goods to help Ukraine. Earlier this year, G7 leaders committed to strip Russia of “most favored nation” trading status, which guaranteed low tariff rates for Russian goods sold globally. President Biden and other G7 leaders will seek authority to use revenues collected by new -- any new tariffs on Russian goods to help Ukraine and to ensure that Russia pays for the cost of its war" the official said.

Biden is also announcing that, pursuant to Congress’s revocation of Russia’s trade status in the U.S., the U.S. will implement a higher tariff rate on more than 570 groups of Russian products worth approximately $2.3 billion.

"These measures will restrict Russia’s ability to benefit economically from sales to the U.S. market and are carefully calibrated to impose costs on Russia, and are not expected to have impacts on U.S. supply chain or raise costs to U.S. consumers," the official added.

G7 Leaders will decide to impose sanctions on those responsible for human rights abuses, including war crimes, exercising illegitimate authority in Ukraine, and involved in Russia’s tactics to steal Ukrainian grain or otherwise profit illegitimately from the war.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Departments of Treasury and State will implement blocking sanctions on private military companies operating in Ukraine, Russian military units that have been credibly implicated in human rights abuses or violations of international humanitarian law in Ukraine, and Russia-installed senior officials in contested areas, including ministers and mayors of contested cities.

The State Department will impose visa restrictions on approximately 500 officials for threatening or violating Ukraine’s sovereignty, territorial integrity, or political independence, or suppressing dissent in Russia.

"And lastly, you will see significant G7 -- significant G7 commitment to help Ukraine cover its short-term budgetary shortfalls, including a $7.5 billion commitment from the United States from the recently passed second supplemental" the official concluded.

Alex Raufoglu

Washington D.C.