HIROSHIMA, Japan (AP) — President Joe Biden on Friday endorsed plans to train Ukrainian pilots on U.S.-made F-16 fighter jets, according to two people familiar with the matter, as he huddled with leaders of the world’s most powerful democracies on plans to toughen punishments on Russia for its 15-month invasion of Ukraine.
The Group of Seven leaders were convening in Hiroshima, where President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is to join them on on Sunday in his farthest trip from his country since the war began in February of last year.
The leaders heard for the first time of Biden’s backing of training Ukrainian pilots on advanced fighter jets, as a precursor to sending the jets to Ukraine.
The G7 leaders also set out new sanctions on Moscow as well as plans to enhance the effectiveness of existing financial penalties meant to constrain President Vladimir Putin's war effort.
“Our support for Ukraine will not waver,” the G7 leaders said in a statement released after closed-door meetings. The vowed “to stand together against Russia’s illegal, unjustifiable and unprovoked war of aggression against Ukraine.”
“Russia started this war and can end this war,” they said.
The F-16 training is to be conducted in Europe and will likely begin in the coming weeks. But Biden told the leaders that decisions on when, how many, and who will provide the fourth-generation fighter jets for Ukraine to use in battle will be made in the months ahead while the training is underway.
That's according to the people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss Biden's private conversations with allies.
Zelenskyy has consistently called for the supply of Western fighter jets to bolster his country's defenses against Russia's invasion, but has until now faced skepticism from the U.S. that they would turn the tide in the war. Now, as Ukraine has bolstered its air defenses with a host of Western-supplied anti-aircraft systems, officials believe the jets could become useful in the battle and essential to the country's long-term security.
Separately, Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense 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.”
Zelenskyy announced Friday that he had opened a visit to Saudi Arabia, where Arab leaders were holding their own summit.
European allies in recent weeks have warmed to the notion of sending fighter jets to Ukraine, as have elements of Biden’s Cabinet, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who has emerged as a staunch advocate within the administration. Under export licensing rules, the U.S. needed to sign off on any allied effort to train Ukrainian pilots or to provide them with the jets.
The announcement Friday came as the U.S. and its allies also announced a series of actions meant to tighten restrictions on already-sanctioned people and firms involved in Russia's war effort. More than 125 individuals and organizations across 20 countries were hit with U.S. sanctions. The financial penalties were primarily focused on sanctions evaders connected to technology procurement for the Kremlin. The Commerce Department also added 71 firms to its own list.
Additionally, new reporting requirements were issued for people and firms that have any interest in Russian Central Bank assets. The purpose is to “fully map holdings of Russia’s sovereign assets that will remain immobilized in G7 jurisdictions until Russia pays for the damage it has caused to Ukraine,” a Treasury statement reads.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the Friday sanctions “will further tighten the vise on Putin’s ability to wage his barbaric invasion and will advance our global efforts to cut off Russian attempts to evade sanctions.”
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 G7 summit. World leaders Friday visited a peace park dedicated to the tens of thousands who died in the world’s first wartime atomic bomb detonation.
After group photos near the city's iconic bombed-out dome, a wreath-laying and a symbolic cherry tree planting, a new round of sanctions were 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 U.S. official said. Russia is now the most-sanctioned country in the world, but there are questions about the effectiveness of the financial penalties.
The G7 nations said in Friday's statement that they would work to keep Russia from using the international financial system to prosecute its war, would “further restrict Russia’s access to our economies” and would prevent sanctions evasion by Moscow.
They urged other nations to stop providing Russia with support and weapons “or face severe costs.”
The European Union was focused on closing loopholes and plans to restrict trade in Russian diamonds, Charles Michel, president of the European Council, told reporters Friday.
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who represents Hiroshima in parliament, wants nuclear disarmament to be a major focus of discussions, and he formally started the summit at Hiroshima's Peace Memorial Park. The visit by world leaders to a park dedicated to preserving reminders of Aug. 6, 1945, when a U.S. B-29 dropped an atomic bomb over Hiroshima, provided a striking backdrop to the start the summit. An estimated 140,000 people were killed in the attack, and a fast-dwindling number of now-elderly survivors have ensured that Hiroshima has become synonymous with anti-nuclear peace efforts.
Biden, who scrapped plans to travel on to Papua New Guinea and Australia after his stay in Japan so that he can get back to debt limit talks in Washington, arranged to meet Saturday on the G-7 sidelines with leaders of the so-called Quad partnership, made up of Japan, Australia, India and the U.S.
The four originally had been scheduled to meet in Australia as part of Biden's effort to revitalize relationships in the Indo-Pacific.
As G7 attendees made their way to Hiroshima, Moscow unleashed yet another aerial attack on the Ukrainian capital. Loud explosions thundered through Kyiv during the early hours, marking the ninth time this month that Russian air raids have targeted the city after weeks of relative quiet.
G7 leaders and invited guests from several other counties on Saturday are also scheduled to discuss how to deal with China's growing assertiveness and military buildup as concerns rise that it could could try to seize Taiwan by force, sparking a wider conflict. China claims the self-governing island as its own and its ships and warplanes regularly patrol near it.
In a bit of dueling diplomacy, Chinese President Xi Jinping is hosting the leaders of the Central Asian countries of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan for a two-day summit in the Chinese city of Xi’an.
The leaders are due to discuss efforts to strengthen the global economy and address rising prices that are squeezing families and government budgets around the world, particularly in developing countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. A U.S. official said the leaders on Saturday would issue a joint communique highlighting a common approach toward dealing with China, as well as outline new projects in the G7's global infrastructure development initiative, which is meant to offer countries an alternative to China's investment dollars.
The G7 includes Japan, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Canada and Italy, as well as the European Union.
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Associated Press writers Adam Schreck and Mari Yamaguchi in Hiroshima, Japan, Raf Casert in Brussels, Hanna Arhirova in Kyiv, Ukraine, and Fatima Hussein in Washington contributed to this report.
Zeke Miller, Foster Klug, Josh Boak, And Elaine Kurtenbach, The Associated Press
