KYIV, June 16 (Reuters) – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Tuesday that the Group of Seven leaders had agreed at a summit in France that Russia was not winning its war in Ukraine, and had discussed additional sanctions to bring Moscow to the negotiating table.Â
Speaking by video link in an interview at the Reuters NEXT Europe summit in London, Zelenskiy said that leaders of the G7 leading industrialised nations discussed additional sanctions on Russia’s energy exports, its banking system and its military production.
Zelenskiy said G7 leaders also discussed the situation on the battlefield as well as potential peace negotiations with Moscow, and the impact of the war on Russia’s economy.
“We had unanimity that Russia is not winning and they are losing a lot of people, that they have to make a deal as quickly as possible, and they don’t have the initiative in their hands,” Zelenskiy said, in a conversation with Reuters editor-in-chief Alessandra Galloni.
Zelenskiy said Ukraine would keep up its own long-range drone and missile strikes on Russia’s energy and military infrastructure, and he said more political pressure was also needed to push Putin towards a peace deal.
“I think that President (Donald) Trump can do it, maybe only him,” he said of the U.S. leader who was among those attending the summit in France.
PRESSURE
Zelenskiy said many people around Putin were pressuring the Kremlin leader to launch a larger mobilization of Russian troops, regardless of the lives lost on the battlefield. But he said a large majority of ordinary Russians understood that their country was not winning the war.
Russia will face a very difficult winter – amid escalating Ukrainian attacks on its energy infrastructure – if a peace deal is not reached before then, he said.
Zelenskiy acknowledged that he was also keen that Ukraine should not endure another hard winter, after Russian strikes devastated its own electricity infrastructure last year.
A day after Russian drones hit one of Ukraine’s most historic monasteries in Kyiv, Zelenskiy said there was a unanimous understanding within the G7 that Russia was deliberately targeting civilian infrastructure, adding that this marked a shift in perceptions.
“Now everyone is recognizing that Russia, that Putin doesn’t want to stop this war.”
Zelenskiy said Trump had responded very positively to his request to increase supplies of air defence missiles to Ukraine.
He is expected to hold a bilateral meeting with Trump later on Tuesday at the summit.
The G7 comprises the United States, Japan, Germany, France, Britain, Italy and Canada.
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(Writing by Daniel Flynn; Editing by Kevin Liffey and Gareth Jones)
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