US ALLIES at the Group of Seven summit of major industrialised nations worked Tuesday to push the war in Ukraine back up the agenda of President Donald Trump after more than four years of fighting sparked by Russia’s full-scale invasion. The Iran conflict has, in recent weeks, overshadowed the war in Ukraine that Russian President Vladimir Putin launched. Host President Emmanuel Macron of France said he’ll seek to persuade Trump to continue supporting Ukraine and increase pressure on Russia to help reach a peace agreement. As the US under Trump has cut back aid to Ukraine, France and its European allies are now the biggest providers of military and financial support to Kyiv. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy joined G7 leaders for a morning working session, but talks wrapped quickly, as leaders gathered for just 75 minutes, according to the French G7 presidency. The Ukraine talks came on the heels of Trump’s announcement of an agreement to end the 3 1/2-month-old US war against Iran. Trump said Tuesday he’ll be meeting one-on-one with Zelenskyy. Trump said he wants to focus on Ukraine now, saying Iran will soon be “back in the rearview mirror.” He downplayed the impact of the Russia-Ukraine war on the US but lamented the death toll. “The whole thing is ridiculous,” Trump said. “So, yeah, I’m going to do whatever I can.” Meanwhile, the UK announced a new set of sanctions targeting the “ shadow fleet “ Russia uses to ship oil and gas, and the finance networks used by Moscow to evade Western sanctions.

 

The ships targeted include several vessels recently purchased by Russia to transport liquefied natural gas from its sanctioned Arctic LNG 2 project. Last weekend, UK troops seized a Russian shadow fleet vessel in the English Channel for the first time. Trump has been frustrated by a lack of movement toward a Ukraine-Russia resolution. Hours before the start of the G7 summit, Russia fired hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles at Ukraine’s biggest cities in a barrage that killed 11 people and set fire to a religious landmark. The attacks on Ukraine’s biggest cities came after Zelenskyy and Putin spoke separately by phone with Trump on Sunday, the US leader’s 80th birthday. The exchange suggests Washington hasn’t given up on its diplomatic efforts to stop the fighting that followed Moscow’s all-out invasion of its neighbour in 2022. While campaigning in 2024 for a return to the White House, Trump claimed he could end the Russia-Ukraine war within 24 hours of taking office. He has since acknowledged that it has proved much harder than he initially thought. Ukraine on Monday officially started European Union membership negotiations, launching a process that will require its government to commit to years of political reforms even as it fights the Russian invasion.

 

Ukraine sees EU membership as a security guarantee for a stable future once the war ends. Its best guarantee would be membership in the NATO military alliance, but the Trump administration insists that it cannot happen, and others are wary of it joining while the war continues. The Iran war has been a flashpoint between Trump and European leaders. The US-Iran ceasefire deal is getting plenty of attention at Tuesday’s sessions. Trump held one-on-one talks with the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, and will meet with United Arab Emirates President Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan later. The Gulf nations are not part of the G7, but Macron extended invitations to the leaders to take part in the summit at a fraught moment for the region. G7 leaders will also convene a working lunch to discuss the situation in the Middle East, where the path ahead after the US-Iran ceasefire agreement is expected to be the focus of the conversation.