G7 Summit spells disaster for Putin as Russian neighbour signs security pact with Ukraine

G7 Summit spells disaster for Putin as Russian neighbour signs security pact with Ukraine

I think the Japanese are very eager to show that they’re part of the general Western Alliance and their immediate concern is obviously more China uh and the threat from China but since China and Russia are pretty close and are certainly on Ukraine speaking with the same voice I think the Japanese feel that they need for their own security to show that they’re willing to help Ukraine uh and at the same time send a message to China that they’re not ened of the uh the the two countries uh on their border what do you think that we can expect to hear from the G7 Summit about Ukraine well I think the important thing is that the leaders of the western Nations the G7 have decided to provide a long-term loan for Ukraine of about $50 billion which is quite a lot of money and this loan the collateral will be the interest on Russian assets that are frozen in the west uh it means that if of course the Russians are allowed to reclaim their money if the war ends in some way then the uh European nations and America and Canada and Japan which have agreed to this loan will have to actually Fork out the um collateral themselves but for the moment this is coming from the Frozen Russian assets and this gives Ukraine immediate relief they need the money straight away and it’s promised that they will get it before December this is isn’t a straightforward process isn’t it it’s got a lot of technicalities to it how soon do you think we can see this being enacted well we’ve had the outlines of it drawn up by what they call the sherpers the people who prepare the summit uh and it’s up to the leaders of the Nations involved to agree the the details and well I think they’ve agreed the principles but the details of how the actual finance will be uh worked out and who’s responsible for what and how the loan will be paid over and all that sort of thing that I think we’ll have to wait and see how it’s drawn up as you say it is a fairly complicated sort of deal and they haven’t done this before it’s not a straight gift from all the nations involved it’s technically a loan but it’s comes with the assurance that the West will do as much as they can to help Ukraine and I think Rishi sunak for Britain has already just announced a further trch of Aid directly for Ukraine and I wanted to Pi you up on that because um the UK prime minister he’s set to announce around 250 million to rebuild Ukraine’s critical infrastructure do you think that this is the right priority to divide the money to well Ukraine needs all the help it can get for almost everything I mean the crucial uh difficulty at the moment is the Russian bombing and targeting of their energy infrastructure which means that they’ve only got about half the power they had before all this started uh and the targeting of the generating stations and particularly the large power plants is causing crippling damage uh what Ukraine wants to do is to have enough money to set up little micr generating areas so that the Russians have many more targets and can’t just knock out the whole system with a few well-directed bombs and of course that needs money to get it going to set it up um but generally the money for the infrastructure is absolutely vital uh although it’s hard to know where to begin I mean so much has been destroyed in many of Ukraine’s big cities that uh where you whether you start with the industry uh that’s been hit or the communications or the uh networks power and uh water and all that sort of thing or whether you start rehousing people and trying to build um houses that uh are temporary or indeed patch up the ones that have been hit that’s up to the ukrainians to decide where their priorities lie what about in terms of um weapons those sort of supplies ammunition do you think we can expect to hear any more on that from the G7 Summit well I think that’s been dealt with already elsewhere I mean that’s been dealt with mostly through NATO and through bilateral announcements the Americans some few weeks ago finally released the money they had promised 61 billion dollar and that is nearly all for weapons uh but what the ukrainians need urgently is actual uh ammunition they need the they need the bullets they need they need also air defenses they need whatever they can get to stop the Russian advance in the Northeast around the city of kiv where they seem to be pushing hard and where they’re striking at the buildings more or less without any Ukrainian opposition because Ukraine lacks the uh anti-missile attack weapons um they’re getting some they got some in place but they need many more and they are pretty vulnerable to aerial bombardment either by missiles or by drones a big criticism of the USA package to Ukraine was that this was coming too late how do you think that this G7 Summit potential decision about these phen assets could be received by Ukraine is it again going to be too late for Ukraine H it’s difficult to say I mean Ukraine needs everything now uh it is really in a difficult position the Russians are steadily building up their forces they’ve leared some good tactics they’ve leared how to uh coordinate their attacks how to use drones how to be effective in their attacks and follow them up and the ukrainians are feeling the pressure all along the the vast front that is now uh separating the two armies uh so uh the ukrainians could do could do with weapons and money straight away now inevitably it takes some time to get everything shipped over there uh particularly things like tanks and uh uh ammunition guns and whatever the Americans have promised to speed up deliveries the Europeans are also delivering stuff but the problem is that many of the countries that were able to deliver arms and weapons and necessary uh things for Fighting the War um they have been taken off the shelves already whatever the Europeans had spare in their magazines and arsenals has already been given to Ukraine so now the Europeans and and presumably also the Americans too they actually need to start manufacturing more stuff to send over to Ukraine and now that takes quite a long time I mean if they haven’t got it immediately to hand then it will be a bit slower so I think the ukrainians need whatever is still available straight away three of the G7 leaders sunak Biden macron they’re all facing general elections this year how do you think that these election results could impact um for example the frozen assets plan well not very much actually well certainly not in the case of Britain and probably also not in the case of France uh with the Americans it’s hard to tell because nobody quite knows what Trump’s plans are uh if he wins and it is looking increasingly as though he has the lead at the moment in the opinion polls if he wins he’s made it pretty clear that he’s not going to give blanket support to Ukraine he said he’ll end the war within days I mean if that means he’s just going to say to the Russians go ahead do what you want we’re not part of this then indeed the war would be over pretty quickly but but it would mean simply a Russian Victory and that’s the end of it um it may not come to that but I think he will be looking pretty a scance at this whole idea because he feels that America’s money is not for spending on foreign Adventures or supporting other places other countries you know far away across the sea in Europe uh and I think that may mean that the American Support which is of course vital as America by far the richest and largest of the G7 countries uh that may be less forthcoming now for the others uh I think a labor government in Britain would more or less stick with the plan they’ve already said that they will support Ukraine and they’ll do what’s needed and if uh maon is uh defeated in Parliament He Still Remains president uh so the French elections even if macon’s party loses heavily to the the right-wing National rally nevertheless I think as president maon can still insist that money continues or Aid continues to Ukraine so it’s also expected at this G7 Summit that seninsky will be signing new security deals with Japan and the US what does that entail well Japan’s an interesting one because they’ve really not been very involved in the Ukraine thing at all uh they are far away they are in fact a nextdoor neighbor of Russia people forget that actually Japan has a border although a Sea border uh with the Russians so they’re pretty close by but it is far away from Moscow and a very long way from Ukraine the Japan borders Russia in the on in the Far East uh so they are quite uh wary of what’s going on in Russia they they’ve been watching Russia for many many years and feeling a little bit insecure living so near next to them um but I think the Japanese are very eager to show that they’re part of the general Western Alliance and their immediate concern is obviously more China uh and the threat from China but since China and Russia are pretty close and are certainly on Ukraine speaking with the same voice I think the Japanese feel that they need for their own security to show that they’re willing to help Ukraine uh and at the same time send a message to China that they’re not frightened of the uh the the two countries uh on their border do you see this G7 Summit creating any reaction from Putin um we’ve heard Russian officials saying that the idea of taking interest from Russian frozen assets it’s theft well of course the Russians will be extremely angry uh and they will threaten to do the same I mean they’ve already threatened and probably have confiscated most Russian assets sorry most western Assets in Russia uh and I think if ever this thing comes to an end it’s going to be a very tough job for both sides to sort out who gets what back again I mean they seem to have lost and it looks as though uh the money the Russian money will be spent uh so it’s unlikely that the Russians will ever get it back which are they pretty angry about uh yes they’ll make further threats they’ll say the other things we can do to hurt the Western economies they’ll try all sorts of possible things both political and economic they’re not in a terribly strong position though to influence what happens in the western economies they can threaten and have threatened and in fact have been interfering in elections in the west so they’ll probably try to clandestinely support those parties that are more pro-russian funly enough it tends to be on the far right where the support for Russia is greatest so you may see a lot of uh interference but uh I don’t think it will amount to very much certainly not in Britain that won’t make much difference whether it will have any influence on the French vote remains to be seen and of course particularly whether Russia is going to do what they can to try in some undercover way to assist prum Trump to come back to the presidency and finally what do you think we can expect to hear about China at the G7 Summit uh not very much I mean the the Europeans and the Americans have a slightly different view on China the Americans do see it as a strategic threat they see China as the big competition for Global dominance uh and they believe that China for all its economic power is actually trying to undermine Western economic uh interests now the Europeans they do recognize that China is very being very assertive particularly in its own area on the other hand China is an important trading partner for Western Europe and for other countries I mean uh uh Japan will raise concerns about security threats from China but the Europeans are not really very willing to Brand China as a threat at the moment uh Britain and uh Japan are both in involved in this new kind of prototype Eastern NATO what they call orcus America uh United States um and Britain and uh Australia have set up a kind of Alliance to provide nuclear technology for uh Australian submarines and Japan is likely to be associated with that they’re not part of it and that does look as though that these countries all of which are members of the G7 don’t well sorry not Australia but these countries are are uh putting their minds together about how they can contain China but I don’t think we’ll see any particularly hostile remarks over China I mean that would be somewhat divisive at the moment we’re hearing claims that potentially Russia and China’s relationship is turning sour it’s not as Limitless as they once claimed it to be what do you make of that well I think it’s inevitable that the Chinese are getting a bit tired of the amount of support that the Russians are demanding from them not not simply political support they’re happy to give that because that discomforts the west and that is also in China’s interest it rather threatens American hegemony Global hegemony which the Chinese see as the main thing that they believe is unfair and wrong and they they’re out to challenge it but the Russians are pretty demanding in terms of what they want in in vital supplies uh they are very much the junior partner now okay the Chinese are doing well buying Russian oil at cheap prices which is in their interests but it’s quite a long way to bring the oil to China they’re not going to get huge amounts straight away they’ve got new pipelines to build and that kind of thing and I think the Chinese are rather worried that this fighting in Ukraine could escalate to the point where you’ve got to direct NATO Russia confrontation that is worrying for them in two reasons if it returns nuclear which the Chinese have said very outspokenly that must not happen they warned the Russians both publicly and privately do not attempt to use nuclear weapons in this thing because they know that would be terrible well that’s the end of everything really and also China is worried about secondary Western sanctions on their uh Industries and products uh if the West says that the Russian that China is supplying uh the Russians to help in their war effort and imposes secondary sanctions on Chinese Goods then the Chinese are losing valuable markets in the west at a time when their own economy is struggling a bit mik opinion thank you very much thank you

The G7 Summit is underway and Michael Binyon from The Times has everything you need to know about what is expected to be announced about Ukraine.

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