Ukraine’s Zelensky expects ‘important decisions’ on his country at G7 summit | BBC News

Ukraine’s Zelensky expects ‘important decisions’ on his country at G7 summit | BBC News

we’re going to start in Italy with the G7 meeting there it seems like the leaders have reached an agreement on a new creative way to try and get more money into Ukraine using money from interest on Frozen Russian assets so these pictures are from a couple of hours ago you can see the back of zilinski there meeting the world leaders we believe there is a political agreement to use this new strategy but details still to be worked out our diplomatic correspondent James landelle is there and he explains the process the world leaders are grapping with to try and help Ukraine now that is the creative idea that the leaders are grappling with at the moment they’ve got this windfall if you like of a very large pot of Russian assets that were frozen after the invasion of Ukraine and they’re sitting around in a mostly within EU financial institutions earning lots of interest but um not being used and they to use that money to try and leverage some more cash for Ukraine but it’s complicated uh there are a lot of technicalities and at the moment we think they’ve probably got some kind of a political agreement behind it but a lot more remains to be hammered out here’s my report they call it a family photo and like all the families the G7 has its troubles many of these leaders are behind in the polls facing tough elections but they want to show the world they’re still relevant while they’re still here one exception is their host Italy’s Prime Minister whose party did well in the European elections she said her Summit would deliver concrete results on everything from migration to the wars in the Middle East and Ukraine the G7 is not a self-enclosed fortress which uh what needs to defend itself against others it is a uh container of values and we want to open to the world in order to have shared development and growth above all the leaders came to this luxury resort to discuss a new plan to use frozen Russian assets to raise about 50 billion a year for Ukraine using interest from the assets to pay off a long-term loan to Kev but there are differences to hammer out some European leaders worry about disrupting financial markets and they want the United States to take on more of the risk the logo of this Summit is the Olive Tree now of course the olive branch is an ancient symbol of peace but the leaders here are going to be talking mostly about war and how to lock in their financial support for Ukraine that they hope May Outlast them one man who got perhaps a warmer welcome than he’s used to at home was Rishi sunak taking time out from the election campaign to promise Ukraine almost 250 million to help rebuild its battered energy infrastructure he’ll also hold talks with Ukraine’s president zilinski who’ll be here later to try to get G7 leaders to give him more of what he needs and that means security here on the southern Italian Coast is especially tight for everyone attending the summit well almost everyone so that idea of using Russian assets to raise cash for Ukraine sounds like an obvious thing to do but it’s not straightforward uh there are a lot of complications there are a lot of issues that are potentially quite divisive about it and here to go through some of the detail of that I’m very glad to be joined by the ft’s bureau chief in Brussels Henry Foy Henry welcome to the BBC um let’s go through some of those complications um there’s some Russian cash why not use it to help support Ukraine well originally the plan was to use all of it just to take the money that was there Frozen about 1990 billion EUR of it held in Belgium and just give it to Ukraine lots and lots of tension in Europe over that what does it mean for the euro is it legal can we do it and so the compromise if you like is to say why don’t we give a loan to Ukraine $50 billion worth now and pay it off over the next 15 to 20 years with the income it’s at the moment that money is earning around3 billion a year so this is a way of getting that money to them quickly instead of drip feeding it out year by year which is not as useful to ke and are the Americans and the Europeans on the same page about where the risk should be borne this is the big question it’s what they’ve been agonizing over really for months and and I believe reached a deal very very early this morning essentially the Europeans are saying look instead of you taking out a loan and us giving you the money to pay it off why don’t we just issue the loan ourselves back stop by the EU budget so if this money stops paying out or interest rates come down to a point where it doesn’t earn any money we’ll pick up the tab it’s European money so we should have the risk if the Americans want to contribute their own alone so be it if they agree a deal how do you think the Russians will respond will it change any thinking in Moscow you’re a former bureau chief in in Moscow what’s their thinking I mean the Russians have been warning for the last two and a half years ever since these assets were immobilized we’re going to take your assets in exchange they’ve started to do that corporate assets companies like carlsburg Etc have had their assets in Russia taken away expropriate and given to Putin’s friends in Russia so I think you’ll see a lot of rhetoric after this Summit but in terms of what they can do they’ll just carry what they’re doing already the Europeans have said we don’t accept you taking our corporate assets is the same as us taking yours because you’ve broken international law youve broken the UN Charter by invading Ukraine so you can’t say these two things are equal this is a slightly strange G7 some of these leaders here might not be here next year at the next G7 how much is this an attempt by them to lock in financial support for Ukraine after they’re gone and perhaps when maybe possibly there might be another American president I think the US president is the really key one here if you can get this loan issued now and start paying out at the end of the year very very difficult for a new Administration to undo that given it’s going to be related to lenders there’s going to be Credit in the markets and so part of the idea today and this this Summit is to get this thing locked in so if there is a change in occupancy in the White House the money will still flow to Ukraine Henry Foy Brussels bureau chief uh for the FD thank you very very much indeed so as you can tell uh a political agreement there may be for this idea to use Russian assets but the devil is very much in the detail and so a lot will depend on precisely what the leaders agree in the text of their communic that we’ll get some time in the next 24 hours

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said he expects “important decisions” to be made at the G7 summit, to help his country fight invading Russian forces.

The White House said the G7 nations have made good progress on a US plan to use frozen Russian assets to raise $50bn (£39bn) a year for Ukraine.

Leaders from seven of the world’s richest nations – Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and the US – are at the summit in Italy to discuss a number of issues, including the wars in Ukraine and Gaza.

Subscribe here: http://bit.ly/1rbfUog

For more news, analysis and features visit: www.bbc.com/news

#G7 #Ukraine #BBCNews