Biden Announces More Aid for Ukraine as G7 Powers Convene in Japan

“I don’t suppose there’s something inevitable in regards to the notion that there’s going to be this battle between the US and the West” with China, Mr. Biden added.

However China was hardly assuaged. Its authorities sharply denounced the G7 summit over the weekend, warning the leaders towards urgent Beijing about Taiwan, financial coercion and different contentious matters.

“The Group of seven talks in lofty tones about ‘transferring towards a peaceable, steady, affluent world,’ however what it’s doing is obstructing worldwide peace, harming regional stability, and oppressing the event of different international locations,” the Chinese language Ministry of International Affairs stated within the assertion. “The Group of seven has ignored China’s grave considerations and insisted on manipulating matters associated to China, vilifying and attacking China, and crudely meddling in China’s home affairs.”

China has been a key ally of Russia all through the Ukraine struggle, though it has not despatched deadly help, in response to American officers. In an indication that Beijing and Moscow stay shut regardless of tensions over the struggle in Ukraine, China introduced {that a} senior envoy, Chen Wenqing, the pinnacle of the Communist Occasion’s political and authorized affairs committee, would go to Russia for conferences about safety cooperation.

Russia had its personal approach of responding to the message of solidarity for Ukraine rising from the G7. The Russian navy positioned two warships and two submarines within the Black Sea, seemingly hinting at a deliberate missile strike on Ukraine to coincide with the G7 summit, a spokeswoman for Ukraine’s southern navy command stated on Ukrainian tv.

The assembly between Mr. Biden and Mr. Zelensky was their first because the American president made a shock journey to Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, in February. The 2 reminisced on Sunday about that go to, after they marched exterior to pay tribute to fallen Ukrainians whilst air raid sirens have been sounding. Mr. Biden remembered following Mr. Zelensky, who appeared unruffled. “And I believed, ‘Nicely, if he doesn’t care in regards to the sirens, I don’t care in regards to the sirens.’”

Jim Tankersley, Chris Buckley, Andrew E. Kramer and Hikari Hida contributed reporting.