The president of the United States, Joe Biden, wants to take advantage of the G-7 summit in Puglia, Italy, to send a strong message of support to Ukraine and increase pressure against Russia and China. The tenant of the White House will meet as soon as he landed on Italian soil on Thursday with President Volodymyr Zelensky, with whom he will sign a security agreement. And, as Air Force One took off for the meeting of industrialized countries, the State Department announced new sanctions against 300 individuals and entities inside and outside Russia, to hit that country’s economy and, more specifically, its arms industry.
Among the sanctions is a veto on Chinese companies that have supplied semiconductors to the Russian military industry, in an attempt to paralyze what Washington perceives as a growing – and worrying – increase in Chinese dual-use exports to its neighbor to allow it a forced modernization of its weapons production capacity.
The new bilateral agreement with kyiv seeks to reinforce “Ukraine’s defense capacity” and underline that Washington’s support for the invaded country “will continue in the long term in the future… especially in the area of defense and security,” the White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan speaking aboard Air Force One.
“By signing it, we will send Russia a signal of our determination. If (Russian President) Vladimir Putin thinks that he will last longer than the coalition that supports Ukraine, he is very wrong,” added President Biden’s main foreign policy advisor. Fifteen other countries have already signed similar security agreements with Ukraine, after agreeing last year during the NATO summit in Vilnius to support kyiv with such initiatives.
The meeting between both leaders will precede a meeting of the G-7, the group of industrialized nations, which will have one of its great pillars in the display of solidarity towards Ukraine when kyiv, weakened by the months of delay in the shipment of American weapons , tries to resist the new attacks from Moscow. Leaders plan to announce new sanctions against Russia, following those announced this Wednesday from Washington.
“The designations target producers, exporters and importers of products essential to the Russian military industrial base,” the State Department said in a statement announcing the new punishments. “We are especially concerned about the breadth and diversity of exports of dual-use goods from the People’s Republic of China,” he points out.
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It is something that Washington has been influencing so far this year. At the beginning of the war he claimed that he did not detect any tangible collaboration from China to help Russia militarily; Beijing’s support for Moscow seemed more limited to more or less ambiguous statements. But now he assures that, although it seems that the People’s Republic is not sending weapons to its neighbor, the shipment of dual-use products is increasing: semiconductors, optical systems for drones and other components.
“Russia continues to manage to evade sanctions and make detours to obtain components such as microelectronics products, which it uses to manufacture weapons. Imports from China fill gaps in Russia’s defense production cycle, intensify military production and give a boost to its military industrial base,” the department denounces.
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