Ukraine’s Zelenskiy meets world leaders on sidelines of G7 summit

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy received a warm welcome in Japan on Saturday after arriving to attend the Group of Seven (G7) summit in Hiroshima for back-to-back bilateral meetings with world leaders.

Zelenskiy has so far met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, France’s President Emmanuel Macron, and Britain’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak among others.

“France has been from the very beginning shoulder to shoulder with you. We will be here to the very end,” Macron told Zelenskiy.

The Ukraine leader’s visit to Japan comes after United States President Joe Biden told G7 leaders on Friday that Washington supports joint allied training programmes for Ukrainian pilots on F-16 fighter jets as Kyiv seeks to boost its air power against Russia.

Modi also made clear his support for dialogue and diplomacy to find a way forward, according to a statement on his office’s official Twitter account.

Zelenskiy said in a post on the social media app Telegram that he had conveyed Ukraine’s humanitarian needs, and briefed Modi about the Ukrainian peace formula and “invited India to join its implementation.”

Leaders of the G7 – the U.S., Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Italy and Canada – are grappling with the challenges posed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and tensions with China, notably over economic security and Taiwan, the self-ruled island Beijing claims as its own.