[1/4] US President Joe Biden attends a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida (not pictured), prior to the G7 summit, at the RIHGA Royal Hotel Hiroshima, in Hiroshima, Japan, May 18, 2023 …
HIROSHIMA, Japan (Reuters) – A US official said ahead of the Group of Seven summit in Japan.
G7 leaders meet in Hiroshima on Friday with the invasion of Ukraine, now in its second year, high on the agenda. The United States has led tough sanctions on Russian companies, banks and individuals, and the upcoming declaration aims to reaffirm the determination of world powers to support Ukraine and put pressure on Moscow.
A US official, speaking to reporters Thursday before the meeting, said the recent G7 efforts were aimed at disrupting Russia’s ability to get the materials it needs for the battlefield, closing loopholes used to evade sanctions, reducing international dependence on Russian energy, and narrowing Moscow’s access. to the international financial system.
“Our commitment to continuing to clamp down on Russia remains as strong as it was last year,” the official said.
The United States and its allies, including the European Union and Britain, have continued to tighten sanctions and export control pressures on Russia since the start of the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Thousands of targets Washington has sanctioned so far have included Russia. President Vladimir Putin, the financial sector and the oligarchs.
Washington over the past few months has cracked down on sanctions evasion with a heavy focus on dual-use items — those with both commercial and military applications.
The latest US sanctions package will include “significantly restricting categories of essential battlefield commodities” as well as barring some 70 entities from Russia and third countries from receiving US exports by adding them to the US Commerce Department’s blacklist.
In addition, the United States will announce about 300 new sanctions against individuals, entities, ships, and aircraft targeting “financial facilitators,” future Russian energy extraction capabilities, and others throughout Europe, the Middle East, and Asia to help support the war.
US sanctions powers will also be extended to more sectors of the Russian economy.
The US official said Washington would take significant steps to closely align its actions with the European Union and Britain to ensure the G7 remains as coordinated as possible in response to Russia’s “brutal actions”.
(Reporting by Jeff Mason and Trevor Honeycutt) in Hiroshima, Japan; Additional reporting by Daphne Psalidakis and Susan Heavy in Washington. Editing by Heather Timmons and Mark Heinrichs
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