ukraine president presentation whatsapp

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky trolls world leaders in WhatsApp presentation

Watch: Zelensky's comedic presentation opening has made it to the internet. Credits: Video - YouTube; Images - Getty / YouTube

President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky has revisited his former career in comedy with a hilarious presentation mocking world leaders.

Zelensky, 41, hosted an official presentation at the 16th annual Yalta European Strategy Meeting , which took place between September 12 and 14.

According to event-goers, the Ukrainian President opened his presentation with a comedic video during the dinner's "evening entertainment". 

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Thanks to the internet, Zelensky's fake WhatsApp chat, 'World Leaders Group', has surfaced for all to see.

The fictional WhatsApp chat showcases an exchange on global affairs between Belarus, China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, North Korea, Russia, the UK, Ukraine and the USA, making light of issues such as Russia's annexation of Crimea and North Korea's nuclear weapons.

"Who is the administrator of this group?" 'Ukraine' asks the chat.

Both 'Russia' and 'China' answer "I am", to which the 'USA' interjects with "you wish" - before temporarily deleting Russia and China from the group.

North Korea then sends the group a series of rocket stickers, to which the USA responds: "Great stickers, but you don't have to send them to me".

Zelensky also made fun of US President Donald Trump's controversial history with women , with the USA sending "you are such a beautiful lady" to the group before quickly saying: "Sorry, wrong chat".

The video has been widely circulated on social media, with many appreciating Zelensky's sense of humour.

"Perks of having a comedian as your President," one person wrote.

"My favourite thing all week. Watching again," tweeted another.

Prior to his political career, Zelensky worked as an actor, screenwriter and comedian. He owns an entertainment production company, Kvartal 95, which specialises in visual content such as TV comedy shows and films.

Zelensky was inaugurated as Ukraine's President on May 20 this year.

WATCH | Ukrainian president hilariously trolls world leaders in 'WhatsApp conversation'

Being president of a country is hard, but this doesn't mean one can't take some time to laugh, even at serious global affairs. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zalensky did exactly this through an imaginary WhatsApp group chat in which he made fun of world leaders during an official presentation at the 16th annual Yalta European Strategy Meeting .

Thanks to the internet, attendees of the address have circulated the hilarious video on Twitter, and everyone is admiring Zalensky's ability to make light of global issues such as Russia's annexation of Crimea, North Korea's nuclear weapons and, yes, although not a global issue, Donald Trump's history with women.

Part II👇🏻 pic.twitter.com/NsN2y2kp8d — Rema Rajeshwari IPS (@rama_rajeswari) September 21, 2019

The name of the group chat is “World Leaders Group” and it features countries including  Finland, the USA, South Korea, North Korea and England. Ukraine asks “who is the administrator of this group?”, to which China and Russia respond “I am” but USA won't budge and says “You wish”.

USA then says to Ukrainian president: “Volodymyr, we must talk, we want to invest several billion dollars in Ukraine. Into which area you advise to invest, agriculture or into metallurgy?”

Ukrainian former president Petro Poroshenko hilariously responds “better into chocolate production”. According to News Hub and Daily Mail, Zalensky was a comedian and screen writer before he was elected as president in April this year.

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Ukraine's president trolls all major world leaders in hilarious WhatsApp presentation joking about Brexit, North Korea's nuclear missiles and Russia's annexation of Crimea

• Volodymyr Zelensky gave the mock presentation at a conference in Ukraine
• It poked fun at America, Russia, Britain and North Korea among other nations
• Zelensky was a TV comedian before he was elected President in April this year 

By Tim Stickings For Mailonline

Published: 17:21 BST, 22 September 2019 | Updated: 18:10 BST, 22 September 2019

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Ukraine 's comedian-turned-President has trolled his fellow world leaders with a hilarious spoof video that imagines what their WhatsApp group might look like. 

Volodymyr Zelensky, who once played a hapless President on TV but was elected to the real-life presidency in April, put on the mock presentation for guests at a summit in Yalta earlier this month. 

The video pokes fun at a a range of global issues including Russia 's annexation of Crimea and North Korea 's nuclear ambitions, prompting uproarious laughter from the crowd.  

It was shared by Indian police officer Rema Rajeshwari, who had friends at the conference in Ukraine.  

Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky (pictured) once played a hapless President on TV but was elected to the real-life presidency in April

At the start of the imaginary WhatsApp chat, entitled World Leaders Group, Zelensky introduces himself to his colleagues and is met with greetings in various languages. 

Britain's initial response is unintelligible, prompting bafflement from its European allies - perhaps an allusion to Brexit. 

A UK message is eventually provided by Prince Harry, who says 'Grandmother [meaning the Queen] wanted me to write that she is very happy to see everyone'. 

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America, Russia and China then squabble over who is the 'administrator of the group' - before Beijing and Moscow are summarily deleted. 

Washington says it wants to invest in Ukraine, at which point Zelensky's predecessor, confectionery tycoon Petro Poroshenko, pipes up: 'Better invest in chocolate production'. 

Ukraine suggests discussing 'the credit issue', at which point the International Monetary Fund leaves the group.  

North Korea joins the group, to the surprise of Ukraine which congratulates the hermit kingdom on its newfound internet access. 

Ukraine's comedian-turned-President put on this hilarious presentation at a conference in Yalta last month, mocking up a world leaders' WhatsApp group chat 

Britain's initial response prompts bafflement from its allies - perhaps an allusion to Brexit - before 'Prince Harry' pipes up with a message from the Queen 

However, Pyongyang admits that it 'actually ran over to South Korea for five minutes' to get a connection. 

When South Korea pops up with an emoji, the North retaliates with three rocket stickers, symbolising its secretive missile production. 

The U.S. replies: 'Great stickers but you don't have to send them to me.' 

America then mysteriously writes the message: 'You are such a beautiful lady', but hastily deletes it and says it was sent to the wrong chat. 

Asked about 'the annexation issue', meaning Russia's disputed annexation of Crimea in 2014, Moscow responds: 'What do you think if we annex half of Great Britain?'.

France, Germany and America promise sanctions, leading Russia to comment: 'So nobody has anything against it'. 

That is a reference to the West's perceived inaction over the Ukraine crisis and the limited effectiveness of sanctions against Moscow.  

Discussion then turns to Donald Trump's plans to buy Greenland from Denmark. 

The Danes say it is 'not for sale' at which point China suggests: 'We can create a copy and sell it to you 10 times cheaper?'.

North Korea's entry to the group prompts surprise over its internet access - but the hermit country admits it had gone to the South to get a connection 

Global powers squabble over who is the 'administrator' of the group - a dispute that Washington apparently wins after Russia and China are deleted from the chat 

The chat pokes fun at Russia's controversial annexation of Ukraine in 2014 with Western powers accused of a lukewarm response 

Washington also claims that 'Russian hackers cracked my account' but an account labelled 'Russian Hackers' denies this. 

Ukraine then suggests that everyone sends a selfie, prompting pictures of Zelensky, Trump and Emmanuel Macron to appear in the chat. 

Belarus struggles with the task and can only provide a zoomed-in picture of strongman Alexander Lukashenko's distinctive moustache. 

In another running joke, Finland has been 'typing' for much of the chat, and after several minutes finally manages to type out 'Hi' - seemingly a reference to what is seen as a complex language.  

Rajeshwari, who shared the video, said Zelensky had given a formal presentation in the morning and then provided the comedy video during dinner that evening. 

It was also shared by journalist Christopher Miller who was at the conference earlier this month. 

The video was apparently put together by Studio Kvartal-95, the production company where Zelensky worked as a comedian. 

He was elected President in April, thrashing previous incumbent Poroshenko in the second round.  

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Ukraine’s President made a hilarious presentation at a conference

The President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky has leaked the hilarious whatsapp group chat of World Leaders. This whatsapp group includes leaders of Ukraine, United States of America, England, France, Germany, Spain, Finland, Russia, China, Denmark, North Korea, South Korea. This group also includes International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Ukrainian businessman and politician Petro Poroshenko.

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Ukraine President's Faux WhatsApp Chat of World Leaders Has Got the Internet Talking

Trending Desk

Last Updated: September 30, 2019, 10:43 IST

Volodymyr Zelensky had an official presentation at the 16th annual Yalta European Strategy meeting which took place between the 12th and 14th of September.

The sixth and current President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky was previously actor, a screenwriter, a producer, and also a comedian. So, he is expected to be the funniest world leader, and he has, indeed, kept that title intact.

Volodymyr Zelensky had an official presentation at the 16th annual Yalta European Strategy Meeting which took place between the 12th and 14th of September.

According to Indy 100 , Rema Rajeshwari, a district police chief in India, had friends who attended the event and told her about the funny presentation that Zelensky had shown to the guests.

The video was later tweeted by Rema from her official Twitter account.

The President of Ukraine made a presentation at a conference, this was his opening... Hilarious take on the global state of affairs. Do watch. Part I👇🏻 pic.twitter.com/gHA4LbV5W7 — Rema Rajeshwari IPS (@rama_rajeswari) September 21, 2019

During the dinner portion of his official day, he decided to upload a hilarious fake WhatsApp group called "WORLD LEADERS GROUP".

The group plays out diplomacy in the video and he manages to make light of a number of series issues including North Korea’s nuclear weapons, Brexit and Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.

At one point North Korea is added to the conversation and sends the group rocket emojis, prompting the USA to respond:

"Great stickers but you don’t have to send them to me."

In another, Ukraine writes: "We would like to discuss the credit issue…” thereby prompting the IMF to leave the fictional group.

There was also a cheeky reminder about US President Donald Trump’s past issues with a woman with a text “You are such a beautiful lady…” before deleting it and writing:

“Sorry, wrong chat."

Of course, after this video was shared online, it was quick to go viral with many taking jibes at the world leaders.

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President of the Ukraine creates comic 'World Leader WhatsApp Group' presentation

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How Ukrainian Civilians Are Using Phones to Share the Invasion With the World

From connecting with loved ones to spreading footage of the war, Ukrainians use their phones as an essential tool.

Phones have become crucial for keeping in contact and staying informed as the Russian invasion of Ukraine rages on.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine , the world has gotten a direct view of the war as ordinary Ukrainians document the fighting tearing through their country.

They're not relying on sophisticated gear as they share videos and photos of the destruction and violence. Rather, they're using the tools they've long relied on to communicate: smartphones, social media, messaging apps and a widespread telecommunications network that's so far been spared from devastation.

Footage and information isn't being blocked, so it's flooding out of the country and into the world in a way that hasn't happened at this scale.

The exact amount of videos flowing out of Ukraine is hard to estimate, said Lukas Andriukaitis, associate director of the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab, but it's coming from multiple sources. Though Ukrainian soldiers are recording some videos, most of the footage is coming from everyday people. 

"There is a huge influx for sure," Andriukaitis said. "Now, when the occupying forces are going through Ukrainian towns and villages, civilians are recording them."

The war in Ukraine is the latest example of how current events, from the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020 to the deadly riot at the US Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, are being broadcast in real time. Viewers around the world aren't waiting for the nightly news, or even for journalistic authority, to absorb a rapidly changing conflict. They're getting raw information in video footage, photos and frontline dispatches from common people. 

The overall effect is a daily flood of footage that's exposed the world to tragedy and resolve in a way that can't be done by official government statements or polished news reports. And this sets the Ukraine war apart from other recent conflicts, like the Armenian-Azerbaijan border strife, where much of the phone-recorded footage is taken by soldiers . In Ukraine, civilians are taking most of the videos, and forensic specialists say that little, if any, of the footage is doctored. 

"We are not seeing much inauthentic or old video content in this conflict," Benjamin Strick, director of investigations at the Centre for Information Resilience , told CNET over email. His organization is monitoring footage coming from Ukraine. "Much of the footage we are seeing actually comes from civilians filming on the ground. ... We are seeing primarily footage filmed from balconies, outside of windows, dashcams, or just passersby on the street that are filming these events." 

As Ukrainians shelter from the war or flee the country, phones become a key way to stay in contact with friends and loved ones. 

Spreading the word, staying in touch, checking if alive

Since the invasion, smartphones have become much more than just a way for Ukrainians to gossip with friends or order dinner. They've been a lifeline for people to understand what's happening elsewhere in the country and to check on the safety of friends and family. 

Natalie Jaresko, former finance minister of Ukraine, likens the ability to communicate to "another form of air."

"At night, when you're at the bunker, you don't have a connection. And those hours are the most difficult because you're so alone other than the people who are in the bomb shelter with you," Jaresko told CNET's Roger Cheng . "But when you come out, you have everyone's outpouring of love and concern right there. And you can return to that communication with the people you love."

Ukrainians have been using a broad mix of mobile apps and tools to stay in touch, from messaging and social media app Telegram to video and text chat service Viber to WhatsApp to Facebook Messenger to Signal to Twitter and more. Viber is installed on 98% of smartphones in Ukraine. The company behind the app says that since the start of the war, it's seen a more than 200% increase in both audio messages and calls.

No matter the app, though, Ukrainians are using these tools to contact friends and family both domestically and abroad, and to navigate with maps and GPS to escape the country. And for the 2 million refugees like Jaresko who've left Ukraine, they use them to check if loved ones back home are OK.

"I can tell whether they're alive or dead at any given time, where they physically are," Jaresko said.

Mobile access continues, so long as the network stays up

Depending on who you ask, it's either an oversight or a Russian strategic move that Ukrainian networks are still functioning. Telecom service has been mostly spared from the devastation affecting parts of the country, but some experts suspect that the communications infrastructure used by civilians and military alike has been deliberately left intact so Russians can listen in , as Politico reported last week. 

"I'm a little surprised that Russians haven't screwed with [Ukraine's mobile network] more, frankly," said James Lewis, senior vice president at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "But I assume that means they're collecting [data] off it."

Network redundancy makes today's mobile networks tougher to disrupt than landline systems. If one cell tower gets knocked out, your phone just connects to another one. Lewis has a list of possibilities of why Russia hasn't crippled Ukraine's network with physical and cyberattacks, but he also noted that telecoms from other European countries are helping from afar to keep phone calls and data flowing. 

Lifecell, the third-largest telecom in Ukraine, confirmed to CNET over email that it's registered a significant increase in calls and data, as many subscribers have lost Wi-Fi access or are hiding in bomb shelters. Just as foreign telecoms have stopped charging for calls and data into Ukraine, Lifecell has given subscribers some free minutes and data, with more portioned out to military, law enforcement and emergency personnel.

Still, some regions enduring the brunt of the Russian shelling and destruction, including the cities of Kharkiv, Chernihiv, Luhansk and Donetsk in the disputed Donbas region, and parts of Kyiv, have lost coverage, Lifecell confirmed. National telecoms operator Ukrtelecom, which oversees mobile and internet service, had restored up to 77% of its regional communication nodes by Thursday, after reported combat damage earlier in the week caused outages in some cities.

But other observers believe communications are still up because Russia underestimated Ukrainian resistance. Alex Bornyakov, Ukrainian deputy minister of digital transformation, told CNET over email that Russian forces didn't initially attack any communication channels or physical infrastructure, but that that's changed as they've moved deeper into the country.

"The first week, in most of the country, we still had good reception and the internet was working fine," Bornyakov said. "Once they approached the big cities, they tried to cut [connectivity]. People instantly [started] repairing it."

But as bombing and shelling has intensified in some cities, the situation has become more volatile. "They're just bombing [networks] instantly, and [Ukrainians] are unable to fix it," Bornyakov said. 

Ukrainians are sharing videos of the war, uploading them to apps like Telegram and Twitter for the world to see.

Chat app lifeline: Is what's happening really happening?

Beyond using chat apps and social media to stay in touch, Ukrainians are tapping them to record the war and share information on it with one another and the outside world. Videos and images appear on Twitter and online forums like Reddit, but many posts spread through the country first on Telegram, Ukrainians' platform of choice for consuming news. Ukrainian government ministries, news organizations and enterprising individuals have spread the content further in scrollable feeds followed by millions of people.

Some of the biggest channels are now focusing on the war.  Ukraine Now , one of the largest in the country with 1.1 million subscribers, was a verified account publishing official COVID-19 pandemic information until it pivoted to sharing invasion updates from the government and other sources. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy uploads his video speeches to the 1.5 million people following his own channel . And videos taken by civilians are published by the likes of Ukrainian news outlet Mirror Weekly's channel before they're posted elsewhere online.

This flood of information goes straight to Ukrainian smartphones, but not all of it is accurate, either because of unintentional mistakes in the fog of war or because of intentional deception. According to a recent report from the University of Texas, Ukrainian users surveyed were more trusting of information they came across on encrypted messaging apps like Telegram, Viber and Signal due to their privacy features, making encrypted messaging apps ripe for propaganda campaigns. 

Sam Woolley, co-author of the report and program director of the propaganda research team at the university's Center for Media Engagement, says misinformation and propaganda still jam Ukrainian messaging apps today. Meanwhile, he says, Ukraine has a very advanced digital propaganda system and is using it to push back on Russian propaganda via its social media accounts and channels, and to call attention to devastating attacks while asking other countries to intervene.

"In a lot of ways, we're seeing a conflict play out on social media, but also on chat apps, in a way we really haven't before," Woolley said.

Verified video: A process between citizens and Western eyes

Due to video footage flooding the internet, the world has seen Russian tanks and aircraft moving through Ukraine, and it's witnessed fires at nuclear power plants and holes punched in apartments. The risky part? Clips can be faked, years old or taken from other conflicts. A patchwork effort of international groups is working to verify the authenticity of videos out of Ukraine and create resources to know what's happening where.

One of the easiest to follow is the Russia-Ukraine Monitor Map , which tags videos to locations in Ukraine, Belarus and Russia with context and a warning for severity of graphic content. The map is a collaboration between the Centre for Information Resilience and the open-source community, including Bellingcat , a collective of experts that for years has released disinformation reports and media authenticity tips. 

Ukrainian refugees at an aid center in Poland.

Though some footage has been manipulated or been recirculated from older conflicts such as the ongoing Syrian civil war, the CIR's Strick said video verifiers aren't seeing much inauthentic or old video content. With so many Ukrainians uploading video, the sheer volume is making it easier to authenticate footage compared with videos from other conflict zones like Cameroon, Sudan, Libya, Yemen and others that CIR monitors.

"There is an extremely overwhelming amount of footage available on Russia's invasion of Ukraine, even right down to specific incidents where we are getting two, three, even four alternative angles of a specific attack. Whereas in Myanmar or Afghanistan, we sometimes struggle to get one," Strick told CNET over email. "The footage from Ukraine is often very clear, quite high definition and often much easier to verify than some areas."

Digital Forensic Research Lab Associate Director Andriukaitis described another factor he says has left Ukrainian citizens in control of the narrative. Stricter mobile phone discipline from soldiers -- notably reports of Russian troops leaving their cell phones at the border before stepping into Ukraine -- means most videos seen today come directly from citizens as they record the destruction of their cities from their balconies and streets.

"One thing that is different is that the Russian military is very, very strict with their soldiers not using phones. It makes sense. It's for operational security," Andriukaitis said. 

Verifying videos, though, is an onerous process, and not everything can be checked. Analysts must scrutinize details like uniforms, debris, damage and lengths of shadows , as well as compare the background to the real-world locations purportedly depicted in the video. Video descriptions and comments on social media help with context, along with metadata embedded in photos and videos, if recorders haven't stripped it to avoid government tracking. 

As the next few weeks develop, the only thing for certain is that more footage will be recorded and uploaded for the world to see, at least as long as cell service remains in Ukraine. And as that footage comes, Andriukaitis and his peers will continue to choose which videos to verify and archive, while avoiding tactical troop movements. The Kremlin has denied that Russia is targeting noncombatants, but Andriukaitis and peers are focusing on the bombing of civilians and other possible war crimes.

"We see a lot of value in that because this will stay in the archives," Andriukaitis said. "And at some point, Russians will have to answer for their crimes."

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Farage says West 'provoked' Russia's invasion of Ukraine with EU and NATO expansions

The reform uk leader said that he "disliked" the russian president - but had admired his abilities as a statesman..

By Tim Baker, Political reporter

Friday 21 June 2024 19:14, UK

Nigel Farage has reiterated that he blames the West and NATO for the Russian invasion of Ukraine - as he confirmed that he previously said he "admired" Vladimir Putin as a statesman.

Speaking to the BBC, the Reform UK leader was asked about his previous comments on Russia and Ukraine.

Asked about Russia's 2022 invasion, Mr Farage told Nick Robinson that he had been saying since the fall of the Berlin Wall that there would be a war in Ukraine due to the "ever-eastward expansion of NATO and the European Union".

Election latest: More bad news for Tory campaign

He said this was giving Mr Putin a reason to tell the Russian people "they're coming for us again" and go to war.

The Reform leader confirmed his belief the West "provoked" the conflict - but said it was "of course" the Russian president's "fault".

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Previous comments Mr Farage made about Mr Putin were also put to him.

He was asked about comments he made in 2014 stating that Mr Putin was the statesman he most admired.

Mr Farage said he disliked the Russian leader - but "I admired him as a political operator because he's managed to take control" of running the country.

"This is the nonsense, you know, you can pick any figure, current or historical, and say, you know, did they have good aspects?" he added.

"And if you said, 'well, they were very talented in one area,' then suddenly you're the biggest supporter."

Read more: Parties raise £5.8m in a week Who are Reform UK? Do the figures in Reform UK's 'manifesto' add up?

Mr Farage was also asked about Brexit, and how it has impacted the UK.

He was asked about previous comments he made when he said Brexit had "failed" .

The former UKIP leader said this is what "the Conservatives have done with it".

"If you put me in charge it'd be very, very different," he claimed, "but of course they didn't do that, did they?"

This is a limited version of the story so unfortunately this content is not available. Open the full version

On his party's climate policies, Mr Farage said he wants to "go for nuclear energy" and scrap the existing net zero programme.

He rejected that he was "arguing the science" on climate change, but that "we spend too much time hyperventilating about the problem, rather than thinking practically and logically what we can do".

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Mr Farage added that King Charles - who was then a prince - made a "very stupid comment" when he said carbon dioxide was a pollutant.

The Reform leader then said that, by deindustrialising, the CO2 production had been sent offshore to places like India and "all we've done is to export the emissions".

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Minister: Meta launches WhatsApp Channels in Ukraine

The U.S.-based tech company Meta has launched a function to create WhatsApp channels in Ukraine, Digital Transformation Minister Mykhailo Fedorov informed on July 24.

"One of the safest messengers in the world is getting even more comfortable and convenient," Fedorov wrote on his Facebook.

"Ukrainians are among the first with access to create their own WhatsApp channels."

According to the minister, the option has been launched in eight other countries.

As Fedorov noted, this function is essential in the face of Russian attempts at destabilization and sowing panic through information space.

WhatsApp Channels will have reliable protection of personal information and their history will be stored on servers for 30 days, Interfax-Ukraine reported , citing Meta Warsaw's press center.

The channels will appear separately from users' private chat, Meta told the news agency. Administrators will be able to block the creation of screenshots and forwarding messages from their channel but will not be able to add subscribers, Interfax-Ukraine wrote.

The news agency reported that the launch of WhatsApp Channels in Ukraine took place in cooperation with President Volodymyr Zelensky, First Lady of Ukraine Olena Zelenska, the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine, the State Emergency Service of Ukraine, the Ukraine.ua and UNITED24 platforms, as well as public organizations.

WhatsApp was co-founded by Ukrainian businessman Yan Kum in 2009 before it was bought by Facebook Inc. (today called Meta) in 2014.

According to Internews, social media are among the most popular ways among Ukrainians to consume news . Telegram ranks as the most-used platform with 60% of respondents using it in 2022.

Read also: How Ukraine’s prodigy minister is innovating the battlefield

G7 Leaders Agree on Plan for $50 Billion Loan to Ukraine

Biden and Zelensky also signed a 10-year security agreement aimed at making Ukraine’s military more self-sufficient. “A lasting peace for Ukraine must be underwritten by Ukraine’s own ability to defend itself,” Biden said.

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Biden and Zelensky Deliver Remarks at G7 Summit

G7 leaders agreed on a plan to give ukraine a $50 billion loan to help it buy weapons and begin to rebuild..

“President Zelensky and I have just now signed that agreement between the United States and Ukraine. Our goal is to strengthen Ukraine’s credible defense and deterrence capabilities for the long term. A lasting peace for Ukraine must be underwritten by Ukraine’s own ability to defend itself now, and to deter future aggression any time in the future. The United States is going to help ensure that Ukraine can do both, not by sending American troops to fight in Ukraine, but by providing weapons and ammunition, expanding intelligence sharing, continuing to train brave Ukrainian troops at bases in Europe and the United States.” “Today is a truly historic day, and we have signed the strongest agreement between Ukraine and the U.S. since our independence. And this is an agreement on security, and thus, on the protection of human life. This is an agreement on cooperation, and thus, on how our nations will become stronger. This is an agreement on steps to guarantee sustainable peace, and therefore it benefits everyone in the world because the Russian war against Ukraine is a real, real global threat.”

David E. Sanger and Steven Erlanger

Here are the latest developments.

The United States and the other large Group of 7 economies agreed Thursday on a plan to give Ukraine a $50 billion loan to help it buy weapons and begin to rebuild damaged infrastructure at a crucial moment in the war, when Russia has the momentum on the battlefield.

The loan is expected to be repaid using interest earned on $300 billion in frozen Russian assets, which are mostly in European banks. Announced at a G7 summit in southern Italy, the loan will be underwritten by the United States, but American officials say they expect their allies, including members of the European Union, to provide some of the funds.

President Biden also signed a 10-year security agreement with President Volodymyr Zelensky. President Biden said the agreement would make Ukraine self-sufficient and put it on the road to becoming a member of NATO.

“Our goal is to strengthen Ukraine’s credible defense and deterrence capabilities for the long term,” Mr. Biden said. “A lasting peace for Ukraine must be underwritten by Ukraine’s own ability to defend itself now and to deter future aggression.”

Mr. Biden is trying to persuade allies that the United States will continue backing Ukraine even if former President Donald J. Trump, who has spoken openly of pulling the United States out of NATO , prevails in the November election. But if re-elected, Mr. Trump could abandon any security agreement with Ukraine, underscoring the political challenges shadowing Mr. Biden and other G7 leaders.

Here’s what else to know:

On the eve of the summit, the Biden administration announced new financial sanctions aimed at interrupting the fast-growing technological links between China and Russia that American officials believe are aimed at bolstering Russia’s military in its war with Ukraine.

Mr. Biden isn’t the only G7 leader arriving in Italy under siege politically . Polls suggest that Prime Minister Rishi Sunak of Britain will be unseated in elections in less than three weeks. And President Emmanuel Macron of France and Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany saw their parties humbled by far-right rivals in European elections just days ago.

Later in the G7 summit, the leaders will tackle topics including migration and artificial intelligence, an issue that Pope Francis plans to address on Friday.

Erica L. Green

The news conference has wrapped up. President Biden and President Zelensky have left the microphones.

President Biden, in response to a question from a reporter at the G7, expressed his support for his son Hunter Biden, who was convicted on three felony gun charges this week, and reiterated that he would not pardon him.

Biden fielded a shouted question from a reporter at the end of the news conference: whether he would commute his son's sentence. “No,” he replied.

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Zelensky identifies the goal of the security agreement with the United States as making a “bridge” to Ukraine’s membership in NATO.

Zelensky calls it a “historic day,” saying that he and Biden have signed the strongest agreement between the U.S. and Ukraine since their independence.

In remarks on the new security agreement, President Biden reiterates that the pact is designed to make Ukraine self-sufficient and put the country on the road to NATO membership. He also salutes the plan to use the interest from frozen Russian assets to provide nearly $50 billion to Ukraine, calling it a “significant outcome.”

President Biden and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine walked out together for a news conference here in Italy, and immediately signed the new security agreement and shook hands. The two leaders are now starting their remarks. [This post originally misidentified the site of the news conference as Brussels.]

The deal outlines a long-term effort to train and equip Ukraine’s forces, provide more modern weapons and help the country build its own self-sustaining military industry.

Alan Rappeport

The Treasury secretary, Janet L. Yellen, an architect of the plan to use Russia’s central bank assets to help Ukraine, said at an event in New York on Thursday that the G7 agreement demonstrated to Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, that Western allies were “completely united” in support of Ukraine. “We intend to give Ukraine the resources it needs to wage an effective war against Russia, and to support their direct budget needs,” she said, “and we’re going to provide a very meaningful chunk of resources.”

Yellen also said that the interest from Russia’s assets could continue to help bolster Ukraine, making it harder for Putin to wait out the West. “This is the first tranche, and if necessary there’s more behind it,” she said. “In a sense, we’re getting Russia to help pay for the damage it’s caused.”

Japan commits $4.5 billion for Ukraine, Zelensky says.

Japan has agreed to provide $4.5 billion in aid for Ukraine this year, part of a 10-year security deal signed by the two countries on Thursday, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said.

The agreement significantly increases Japan’s support for Ukraine at a critical moment in its war with Russia and underscores Japan’s efforts to strengthen its security and diplomatic ties with Europe after the full-scale conflict began in 2022.

“For Japan, this type of agreement and this level of support is a breakthrough,” Mr. Zelensky said on social media . “We see this and thank Japan for its unwavering solidarity.”

Mr. Zelensky said Prime Minister Fumio Kishida of Japan had signed the pact as the leaders gathered for the Group of 7 summit discussed other plans to support Ukraine.

Ukraine’s deal with Japan included commitments on defense support, humanitarian aid and technical cooperation, Mr. Zelensky said.

Mr. Kishida said in a statement earlier this week that Japan would “do its utmost to ensure” that peace was restored in Ukraine.

Ukraine has signed several similar agreements with wealthy nations during the war.

Last December, Japan outlined a $1 billion assistance commitment for Ukraine, and signaled a willingness to later increase the support to $4.5 billion.

“The scale of the involvement is an escalation,” Daniel Sneider, a lecturer in East Asian studies at Stanford University, said of Japan. “They want to march in lock step with NATO. That’s a pretty big deal in Japan.”

Separately, President Biden was expected to sign a 10-year U.S. security agreement with Ukraine on Thursday, the first day of a three-day G7 summit in Italy.

The leaders of the G7 nations — Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States — also agreed on a plan to provide Ukraine with a $50 billion loan to help it buy weapons and restore infrastructure.

Steven Erlanger and David E. Sanger

U.S. and other large economies agree on a plan to loan $50 billion to Ukraine.

The United States and the West’s other large economies have agreed on a plan to issue a roughly $50 billion loan to Ukraine that would be repaid by interest and profits from nearly $300 billion in frozen Russian assets held in the West.

The promise of much-needed financial support for weapons and to begin to rebuild damaged infrastructure comes as Ukraine has been forced to sell some state assets and as the momentum in the war on its territory has shifted in favor of its foe, Russia, whose forces launched a full-scale invasion in 2022.

President Biden agreed to have the United States underwrite the entire loan, but American officials said they expected allies, including members of the European Union, to provide some of the upfront funds.

The loan would eventually be repaid through interest and profits earned on the frozen Russian assets, which would serve as collateral.

In a news conference Thursday with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine in Italy, on the sidelines of the Group of 7 summit , Mr. Biden said the agreement was another reminder to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia that “we’re not backing down. In fact, we’re standing together against this illegal aggression.”

In New York on Thursday, Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen, an architect of the plan, said that the profits from Russia’s assets would provide Ukraine with additional aid in the future, making it harder for Mr. Putin to wait out the West.

“This is the first tranche, and if necessary there’s more behind it,” Ms. Yellen said. “In a sense, we’re getting Russia to help pay for the damage it’s caused.”

The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said on Thursday that all the members of the Group of 7, the world’s wealthiest large democracies, would participate, including the European Union itself, but the extent of each member’s participation was being worked out by finance ministers and other technical experts.

The European Union might contribute up to half the money, a senior European official said, speaking anonymously under normal diplomatic ground rules, while American officials said that Washington would make up any remaining difference.

The issue is complicated, because if the Russian assets are unfrozen or if interest rates drop significantly, then the interest and profits may not cover the loan, requiring a burden-sharing arrangement with other countries to guarantee repayment.

The idea of a loan using the assets is an American one, given the need to get money to Ukraine quickly and before the November U.S. election that could return Donald J. Trump, who has been more critical of aid to Ukraine, to the presidency.

The European Union had agreed to use only the yearly profits and interest from the assets — perhaps $3 billion — to aid Ukraine, but embraced the essence of the American plan once the issue of who would guarantee the loan seemed to have been resolved.

The money is expected to be disbursed through various channels, instead of being directly handed to Ukraine, so that it will be used for Ukraine’s pressing military, budget and reconstruction needs, the European official said.

Alan Rappeport and Tim Balk contributed reporting.

The NATO secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, says that delays in sending military support “created big problems for Ukrainians on the battlefield” this year. His comments were part of a push to create a new, more predictable system of military aid to Ukraine after the United States delayed approving $61 billion for more than six months.

reporting from Brussels

At a meeting of a Ukraine defense alliance, Austin pledges to keep sending military aid.

Reinforcing the support for Ukraine that the Biden administration has expressed during the Group of 7 summit, Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III pledged at a high-level gathering in Brussels on Thursday that Washington would keep supplying Ukrainian forces with military hardware to use against continued Russian assaults.

“As we gather this morning, Ukraine’s forces are in a tough fight,” Mr. Austin said at the event, a meeting at NATO headquarters of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, a consortium of about 50 nations that have provided military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine during the war. “In Kharkiv and elsewhere, the Kremlin continues to intensify its bombardment of Ukraine’s cities and civilians, and Ukraine urgently needs more air-defense capabilities to defend its skies.”

The U.S. defense secretary said that Ukrainian forces were both fending off Russia’s assault around Kharkiv in northern Ukraine and “holding strong” along the country’s eastern and southern fronts — although Ukraine has struggled in recent months .

Representatives from more than 40 nations attended the meeting, including all 32 NATO member states, several of what the United States calls its “major non-NATO allies,” and European nations like Georgia and Bosnia and Herzegovina that hope to someday join NATO.

“We have a clear framework we are supporting with Ukraine,” Irakli Chikovani, Georgia’s defense minister, said in an interview before the meeting began. “This is a political and humanitarian framework. This is something that has been declared for many months — since the beginning of the war against Ukraine — and we’re going to stick to that plan.”

Kosovo, which the United States recognized as a sovereign nation in 2008 but that is not universally recognized by members of the United Nations, has also contributed material support to Ukraine as a member of the contact group. Kosovo has been modernizing its military to NATO standards — an expensive and time-consuming process that Ukraine itself is also working to do in the middle of fighting a war.

“We are very determined on the path to joining the alliance,” Ejup Maqedonci, Kosovo’s defense minister, said in an interview at NATO headquarters. “For defense equipment, we are procuring only from NATO countries, mostly from the U.S., the U.K., Turkey and Italy.”

The country has conducted two training sessions on demining for Ukrainian troops and recently provided Kyiv with mortar ammunition and tracks for armored vehicles, Mr. Maqedonci said.

“We procure for ourselves, but we see the war in Ukraine as our war also,” he said.

Mr. Austin announced that Argentina, also a major non-NATO ally of the United States, had joined the coalition and he welcomed the country’s defense minister, Luis Petri, to his first meeting of the group. Argentina committed last year to delivering two Russian-made Mi-17 helicopters to Ukraine, according to data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

Mr. Austin said Russia had suffered “staggering losses” thus far in the war, including 350,000 soldiers killed or wounded, thousands of vehicles destroyed and at least 24 vessels sunk, destroyed or damaged in the Black Sea.

“This is a critical moment. The stakes of this war are high. Ukraine’s survival is on the line, but so is all of our security,” Mr. Austin said, adding, “Make no mistake, Ukraine’s partners around the world have its back.”

Mark Landler

Reporting from the G7 summit in Italy

Climate change and aid for Africa have faded as G7 priorities, campaigners say.

One byproduct of a politically weakened Group of 7, critics say, is a weakening of commitments to curb climate change or aid global development. Advocacy groups have turned out in Italy to press the G7 leaders to make concrete commitments to aid for Africa and increasing financing to offset damaging climate change.

But these groups say they have little hope that the meeting will produce tangible results on either. That reflects both the political headwinds these leaders face at home, as well as the legacy of the coronavirus pandemic and the war in Ukraine, which have squeezed public finances across the West.

Luca Bergamaschi, the co-founder of Ecco Climate, an Italian climate advocacy group, said he hoped the G7 would commit to increasing the target for global climate financing, which still depends heavily on contributions from the industrialized countries that make up the group.

But beyond a general expression of support by the leaders for expanded financing of projects to reduce carbon emissions, Mr. Bergamaschi said he did not expect “a concrete commitment to increase it.”

Western aid to Africa has similarly suffered, according to One Campaign, an advocacy organization. An analysis released by the group on the eve of the summit concluded that the share of aid going to Africa from Group of 7 countries, as well as the European Union, had fallen to its lowest level since 1973.

That is a result of cuts to aid spending in the United States, Germany, France and other European countries, the group said. It has led to a drop in net financial flows to Africa and greater fiscal pressure on those countries, which are projected to spend $81 billion to service their debts between 2023 and 2025.

“The need for increased investments that drive economic growth and healthy lives in Africa has never been more important, but many partner countries are looking inward instead of forward,” One Campaign’s president, Ndidi Okonkwo Nwuneli, said in a statement.

David E. Sanger

The U.S. and the West’s other large economies have agreed on a plan to issue a roughly $50 billion loan to Ukraine. The loan would be repaid with interest earned on $300 billion in frozen Russian assets, mostly in European banks. President Biden agreed to have the U.S. underwrite the entire loan, but American officials say they expect allies, including members of the European Union, to provide some of the funds.

The loan comes at a critical moment, when Ukraine is being forced to sell some state assets, and when the momentum in the war has shifted in favor of Russia — meaning that destruction is accelerating, even as Ukraine struggles to rebuild its power plants and destroyed hospitals, communication networks, ports and homes.

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, below with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni of Italy, has arrived at the G7 summit. He is slated to meet with President Biden later today to discuss U.S. support for Ukraine, and the two leaders are scheduled to sign a security agreement and hold a news conference.

NATO allies have pledged more military support to Ukraine during a meeting of the alliance’s defense ministers, their last gathering before a high-level summit in Washington next month. “We are urging allies to step further up, and also to ensure that the assistance is delivered as soon as possible,” Jens Stoltenberg, the NATO secretary-general, told Ukraine’s defense minister, Rustem Umerov.

President Biden and other G7 leaders are currently in a working session on the Middle East. Biden has been working to shore up support for a three-phase cease-fire proposal he announced last month.

G7 leaders, who have been divided over Israel’s conduct of the war, united to back the plan, which the U.N. Security Council has also endorsed. But neither Israel nor Hamas has publicly accepted it, and Biden’s national security adviser said this morning that the U.S. was working to “ bridge the remaining gaps ” between the two sides.

Steven Erlanger

A senior European Union official said that G7 leaders were still working toward a complex agreement on a big loan to Ukraine, financed with the interest from frozen Russian assets, and that the money would be used for Ukraine’s defense and financial needs, and a small part for reconstruction.

After a dispute between the U.S. and the E.U., which holds the bulk of the roughly $300 billion in frozen Russian assets, about who would guarantee the loan, the discussions were moving toward a guarantee by G7 countries that wish to participate, the official said.

Emma Bubola

Reporting from Rome

In a first, Pope Francis will attend the G7 summit.

As leaders from the Group of 7 nations gather this week in southern Italy, they will be joined by representatives from countries at the center of international conflict, from developing nations like Brazil and India, and, for the first time, from the Holy See.

Pope Francis, the Vatican announced, will take part in a discussion on Friday on the ethical implications of artificial intelligence at a session that is open to envoys from countries that are not G7 members. The Vatican said Pope Francis would also have bilateral conversations with some of the visiting leaders, including President Biden and Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni of Italy, who invited him, said the pope’s presence would “make a decisive contribution to defining a regulatory, ethical and cultural framework” for A.I., adding that his participation “brings prestige to our nation and to the entire Group of 7.”

Francis’s participation in the summit comes as the 87-year-old pope was reported this week to have used again an offensive slur to refer to homosexuality, the same pejorative he was accused of using last month. The reports last month prompted a backlash among L.G.B.T.Q. people, toward whom the pope had generally adopted a more welcoming approach.

The pope’s G7 presence breaks with a long tradition in the Roman Catholic Church of refusing such invitations on the basis that a pontiff does not need state leaders or anyone else to offer him a platform to speak, said Alberto Melloni, an Italian church historian.

“The pope already has the floor,” Mr. Melloni said.

But in this case, Pope Francis, who has a record of breaking with conventional behavior, might see the summit as a high-profile opportunity to send another loud message on ending conflicts such as the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, Mr. Melloni said.

Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s secretary of state, told Avvenire, an Italian Catholic daily, that Francis was ready to use “all the means and spaces” available to make the case for peace.

Francis’ invitation to the summit, he added, was also a recognition of the profound ethical implications of the technology he will officially be there to discuss.

The pope has already been caught in the currents of A.I.-generated photographs of Francis wearing a giant white padded jacket, riding a motorcycle and drinking a beer at a music festival have caused widespread glee on social media. But Francis and the Vatican have also highlighted more serious implications of artificial intelligence, including in education, communication, working life, and corporate and government decision-making.

In 2020, the Pontifical Academy for Life, a research institute whose members are selected by the pope, issued a document, the “Rome Call for A.I. Ethics,” that laid out principles for the development and use of the technology. Top players in the field of A.I., including leaders at Microsoft, I.B.M. and Cisco, have signed the document.

Francis himself addressed the subject in a message on New Year’s Day, calling for a global treaty to ensure that A.I. systems preserved space for human mercy, compassion and forgiveness, rather than be plunged into a reality operated by inscrutable algorithms. He said it was vital to understand what effect these technologies will have on individual lives and on societies, on international stability and on peace.

The Rev. Paolo Benanti, who serves as an A.I. ethicist to both the Vatican and the Italian government, said that the pope’s attendance at the G7 meeting emphasized his willingness to engage with pivotal global issues.

“The pope shows that he has these antennae,” Father Benanti told reporters this past week, citing Francis’ other major concerns, such as migration and climate change, adding, “He perceives where the world goes.”

In the seaside town of Savelletri, where the G7 summit is taking place in a luxury tourist resort, residents had high hopes for the pope’s visit. Although tight security protocols mean that locals are unlikely to see Francis in person, many were keeping their fingers crossed for some payoff, however small.

“At least a blessing,” said one 68-year-old resident, Laura Mancini. “He must give that to us.”

Matthew Mpoke Bigg

What is the G7, and why does it matter?

Every year, as the leaders of the world’s wealthiest large democracies gather for a summit, the same questions arise: What exactly is the summit for, and why does the group matter?

The heads of the Group of 7 nations — Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States — started their annual summit on Thursday at a luxury hotel in Puglia on the southern Italian coast, overlooking the Adriatic Sea. The wars in Ukraine and Gaza and the threats posed by China’s economic rise are high on the agenda.

The leaders, along with representatives of the European Union and selected guests, meet to discuss economic issues and major international policies. This year the summit’s host, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni of Italy , has also invited other figures including Pope Francis and Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India.

Whatever the leaders’ disagreements on the issues, one feature of the summits tends to be a shared overall outlook. Their countries are major trading partners, and even if their share of global trade has declined, they account for about half of the world economy. They also share broadly similar views on trade, security and human rights, giving them enormous influence when they act in concert.

A recent example of that is the war in Ukraine. President Volodymyr Zelensky, whose defense against the Russian invasion of his country has been a rallying point for the G7, is attending again this year.

By the same token, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia is one of the group’s most notable absentees. Russia was a member of the group from 1997 until it was excluded in 2014, the year that its forces entered eastern Ukraine and seized Crimea.

The group’s origins go back to the 1973 oil crisis . It grew out of an informal gathering of finance ministers from Britain, France, Japan, the United States and what was then West Germany — initially known as the Big Five — as they tried to agree on a way forward.

Since then, the group and its added members have met dozens of times to work on major issues that affect the international economy, security, trade, equality and climate change. In 2015, the summit paved the way for the Paris agreement to limit global carbon emissions, which was adopted later that year.

The summits are often defined by the most pressing issues of the day: The Sept. 11 attacks on the United States in 2001, the financial crisis of 2008 and the coronavirus pandemic that began in 2019 have all dominated the meetings.

They are also a showcase for cultural diplomacy, as each year’s host country offers examples of the best of its cuisine.

For all the aura of diplomacy at the summit, however, each leader has an eye on domestic politics as well. A leader fresh from an election victory can sometimes arrive with a swagger. For a leader about to face an angry electorate, the reverse can be true. Several of the leaders in Italy this week are in the latter category .

The summit will put on further display the unexpected allyship of President Biden and Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni of Italy, whose far-right politics have drawn comparisons to former President Donald Trump.

Biden, who expressed concern for democracy after Meloni was elected, has since embraced her as a partner and has leaned on her in getting aid to Ukraine . When she visited the White House in March, he said they “have each other’s backs” and “have Ukraine’s back.” At the first roundtable of the summit, the two leaders sat next to each other.

Biden will sign a 10-year pact to aid Ukraine’s military, officials say.

President Biden signed a 10-year security agreement with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine on Thursday, an effort to signal a long-term American commitment to Ukraine’s future as an independent and sovereign state at a time when the war set off by Russia’s full-scale invasion is deep into its third year. But the accord could easily be upended by the coming American presidential election.

The deal outlines a long-term effort to train and equip Ukraine’s forces, provide more modern weapons and help the Ukrainians build their own self-sustaining military industry that is capable of producing its own arms.

Speaking at the Group of 7 summit in Italy on Thursday, Mr. Biden said the agreement was designed to make Ukraine self-sufficient and put the country on the road to NATO membership. The accord is essentially an executive agreement between two presidents.

The pact is modeled on the kind of long-term security agreements that the United States has with Israel . But the “Israel model” is based on a congressional agreement to provide billions of dollars in aid. The agreement with Ukraine carries a commitment by the Biden administration only to work with Congress on long-term funding.

Given the bitter monthslong wrangling over the $60 billon in aid to Ukraine that Congress passed this spring, there is little appetite for bringing the issue up again until next year. If Mr. Biden were no longer in office, that commitment would mean little.

The new accord does not commit the United States to send forces in to defend Ukrainian territory. According to two administration officials, it requires the United States to “consult” with Ukraine about its needs within hours of any attack on the country.

NATO membership for Ukraine — which President Biden has opposed while the war with Russia is still being fought — might compel the U.S. to send forces if the country was re-invaded by Russia. That is one reason Mr. Biden has resisted.

While Mr. Zelensky embraced the agreement at the news conference with President Biden on Thursday, the Ukrainians are skeptical of these accords. Without congressional funding, the support is largely rhetorical.

Ukrainian officials often talk about the emptiness of the accord known as the Budapest Memorandum , a political agreement signed in December 1994 in which Ukraine agreed to give Russia old Soviet nuclear weapons that had been based in Ukrainian territory. In return, the memorandum committed Russia, the United States and Britain to seek help for Ukraine from the United Nations Security Council if it “should become a victim of an act of aggression or an object of a threat of aggression in which nuclear weapons are used.”

When Russia annexed Crimea two decades later, in 2014, Western nations said that Russia had violated its commitments to Ukraine, and they made a similar case in 2022, when President Vladimir V. Putin invaded the entire country. The Russians denied that claim, saying the accord had only committed them not to use nuclear weapons against Ukraine.

Speaking to reporters on Air Force One on Wednesday night as Mr. Biden flew to Italy for the G7 summit, Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, said that the situation was radically different today, and that the United States and the West had already provided Ukraine with tens of billions of dollars in aid.

The new arrangement with Ukraine is not a treaty, so it does not require American security guarantees the way that mutual defense treaties with Japan, South Korea and the Philippines do. And because it is essentially an executive agreement, Donald J. Trump, if re-elected, could abandon the deal, as he abandoned the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran in 2018.

Tim Balk contributed reporting.

President Biden has arrived at Borgi Egnazia, in Puglia, Italy, for the G7 summit. The president’s big priority is to secure a deal among leaders to unlock frozen Russian assets to support Ukraine, but National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said the president would gauge the summit’s success on making “tangible progress” on a range of other issues, including Chinese trade practices and the war in Gaza.

NATO defense chiefs pledge more aid for Ukraine, and carve out an exception for Hungary.

As G7 leaders meeting in Italy were focused on Ukraine, NATO’s defense chiefs gathered separately on Thursday in Brussels to pledge additional air defenses, ammunition, drones and other weapons to Kyiv, and to prepare long-term military commitments to be announced next month at a high-level summit in Washington.

But perhaps the most significant boost for Ukraine came in a new agreement that Hungary would not contribute to the military alliance’s war effort — but also would not block it.

Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary is the NATO ally closest to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, and under his leadership Hungary has refused to give Ukraine any weapons or other lethal war support. Hungary has also opposed European Union sanctions against Russia and delayed financial aid to Ukraine , leaving other NATO states worried that Mr. Orban similarly would block additional military support at the alliance’s gathering in July.

“It is well known here that Hungary’s position is different from the majority of NATO member states,” Mr. Orban said on Wednesday after meeting with the NATO secretary-general, Jens Stoltenberg.

But Mr. Stoltenberg headed off any Hungarian veto by agreeing that the country would not be expected to contribute to any NATO efforts supporting Ukraine’s military with money, weapons or training.

On Thursday, Mr. Stoltenberg said he did not expect other NATO allies to follow Hungary’s lead.

“There has been as a broad agreement across the alliance for many years, and in particular, since the full-scale invasion in February, that we need to provide military support to Ukraine,” he said. “Hungary has been clear since the beginning that they don’t provide lethal aid, but other allies have.”

Some other allies, like Slovakia, have signaled that they are weary of footing the bill for the war effort. The success of hard-right nationalist parties in some of last weekend’s European Union elections has given rise to concerns that other states may also back away from supporting Ukraine.

Asked if allowing members to opt out of war support for Ukraine would become a new practice in NATO, Defense Minister Pal Jonson of Sweden shrugged off Hungary’s defiance.

“It’s very important that we make progress on supporting Ukraine, and we think that this is a pragmatic way to move forward in this regard,” he said at NATO headquarters in Brussels on Thursday. “The most important thing is that the alliance, as such, can deliver any support to Ukraine.”

Mr. Stoltenberg said the defense ministers’ meeting would also finalize plans for a new role for the alliance in overseeing delivery of military aid and training for Ukraine, and discuss plans to send $43 billion annually to the war effort for the foreseeable future.

David E. Sanger ,  Alan Rappeport ,  Edward Wong and Ana Swanson

Reporting from Washington

On the eve of the summit, the U.S. expanded sanctions on Russia.

The Biden administration on Wednesday announced a series of new financial sanctions aimed at interrupting the fast-growing technological links between China and Russia that American officials believe are a broad effort to rebuild and modernize Russia’s military during its war with Ukraine.

The actions were announced just as President Biden was leaving the country for a meeting in Italy of the Group of 7 industrialized economies, where a renewed push to degrade the Russian economy will be at the top of his agenda.

The measures were coordinated by the Treasury, State and Commerce Departments and aimed to further isolate Russia from the global financial system and cut off its ability to gain access to the technology that powers its military arsenal.

The effort has grown far more complicated in the past six or eight months after China, which had previously sat largely on the sidelines, stepped up its shipments of microchips, machine tools, optical systems for drones and components for advanced weaponry, U.S. officials said. But so far Beijing appears to have heeded Mr. Biden’s warning against shipping weapons to Russia, even as the United States and NATO continue to arm Ukraine.

Although the measures expand the reach of the U.S. sanctions program, the Biden administration has so far held back from imposing sanctions on Chinese or European banks that it believes are helping Russia. The new measures do not restrict banks from facilitating transactions related to Russia’s energy exports, which the Biden administration has allowed to continue out of concern that restricting them could fuel inflation.

Announcing the sanctions, Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen said in a statement that “Russia’s war economy is deeply isolated from the international financial system, leaving the Kremlin’s military desperate for access to the outside world.”

At the heart of the measures is an expansion of “secondary” sanctions that give the United States the power to blacklist any bank around the world that does business with Russian financial institutions already facing sanctions. This is intended to deter smaller banks, especially in places like China, from helping Russia finance its war effort.

The Treasury Department also imposed restrictions on the stock exchange in Moscow in hopes of preventing foreign investors from propping up Russian defense companies. The sanctions hit several Chinese companies that are accused of helping Russia gain access to critical military equipment such as electronics, lasers and drone components.

In addition to the Treasury Department’s measures, the State Department imposed sanctions on about 100 entities, including companies “engaged in the development of Russia’s future energy, metals, and mining production and export capacity.” And the Commerce Department announced its own set of restrictions, banning American exports to certain addresses in Hong Kong that the United States says are used to set up shell companies to funnel banned goods to Russia.

Mr. Biden has tried before to choke off supplies and financing to Russia, and overestimated the effects of that move. In March 2022, shortly after the war began, he announced an initial round of financial actions and declared, “As a result of these unprecedented sanctions, the ruble almost is immediately reduced to rubble.” It was not. After a brief dive, it recovered, and while today it is not as strong as it was a year ago, the Russian economy has been expanding because of the strength of war-related growth.

Much of that is thanks to China’s effort. It has been buying Russian oil, often at a discount to world prices. And it has ramped up its sale of dual-use goods, especially the microelectronics and software needed to manufacture weapons systems, drones and air defenses.

The result has been the rise of a somewhat parallel war economy involving Russia, China, Iran and North Korea. Many of the firms subject to sanctions are in Hong Kong or just over the border in Shenzhen, the technology manufacturing center of China. Yet administration officials insist that this time, they can choke off what has become a deepening commercial relationship.

In announcing new restrictions on Chinese firms, the Biden administration is also hoping to spur European governments and possibly Asian allies to take similar measures.

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken discussed the issue with European counterparts at a meeting of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in Prague last month, and U.S. officials intend to put it on the agenda of a leaders’ summit in Washington in July.

Mr. Blinken has also warned the Chinese government that it cannot hope to have an amicable relationship with European powers if it props up the Russian defense industry.

At a news conference in Prague on May 31, Mr. Blinken said 70 percent of the machine tools that Russia is importing are coming from China, as well as 90 percent of microelectronics.

“China cannot expect on the one hand to improve relations with countries of Europe while on the other hand fueling the biggest threat to European security since the end of the Cold War,” he said.

Erica L. Green and David E. Sanger

Biden plans a push for frozen Russian assets to help rebuild Ukraine.

Two weeks after President Biden reversed himself and approved firing American weapons into Russian territory, he and his closest allies are preparing a different kind of assault, using the proceeds from Russia’s own financial assets to aid the reconstruction of Ukraine.

For two years, the world’s largest Western economies have debated how to deal with $300 billion in frozen Russian assets, which the Kremlin left in Western financial institutions after the Ukraine invasion began in 2022.

Now, after long debates about whether the West could legally turn those assets over to the government of President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, the allies seem on the brink of a compromise, to be announced at the Group of 7 summit in Italy.

The Group of 7, which comprises the world’s wealthiest large democracies, is about to agree to a loan to Ukraine of roughly $50 billion to rebuild the country’s devastated infrastructure, with the understanding that it will be paid back by interest earned on the frozen Russian assets, Western officials said. But even that amount, experts say, would only begin to make a dent in building a new Ukraine.

The financing announcement will be only a part of a summit this week that will range from how to reverse Russia’s new momentum to how to bring about a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas. Mr. Biden and Mr. Zelensky will meet on Thursday and sign a security agreement, said Jake Sullivan, Mr. Biden’s national security adviser.

“We want to demonstrate that the U.S. supports the people of Ukraine, that we stand with them, and that will continue to help address their security needs, not just tomorrow, but out into the future,” Mr. Sullivan told reporters aboard Air Force One on the way to Italy.

“By signing this, we’ll also be sending Russia a signal of our resolve,” he added. “If Vladimir Putin thinks that he can outlast the coalition supporting Ukraine, he’s wrong.”

There will be moments during the summit when the leaders will try to lift their eyes beyond the current crises, including a meeting between the leaders and Pope Francis, focused on harnessing the power of artificial intelligence.

The loan deal, combined with a raft of new sanctions aimed at countering China’s effort to remake Russia’s defense industrial base, are part of the latest efforts to bolster Ukraine and hobble Russia at a perilous moment in the 27-month old conflict.

Still, Europe is bracing for the possibility that former President Donald J. Trump, who has spoken openly of pulling out of NATO, could be back in power by the time the group next meets, in 2025. And several of the leaders present — including Prime Minister Rishi Sunak of Britain and President Emmanuel Macron of France — are facing elections that could redefine Europe.

Mr. Biden faces the hurdle of convincing his allies, starting with Mr. Zelensky, that the United States plans to stay in the fight with Ukraine, no matter what happens in November. The extensive delays this spring in getting congressional passage of the $61 billion in new ammunition and air defenses, Mr. Biden’s aides acknowledge, cost Ukraine lives, territory and tactical military advantage.

Mr. Biden told Mr. Zelensky last week, in France, that “I apologize for the weeks of not knowing what was going to pass,” and put the onus on Republicans in Congress. “Some of our very conservative members were holding it up,” he said.

But the scope of the opposition in Congress also raised the question of whether that last injection of a sizable military package could be the last, and threatens Mr. Biden’s claim as the Western leader who rallied the rest of the allies to fend off further assaults by President Vladimir V. Putin.

Now, with the war at a critical moment, the Group of 7 leaders seem poised to end months of deliberations over how to use the $300 billion in frozen Russian central bank assets, which were largely kept in European financial institutions. The idea is to provide an infusion of economic aid to Ukraine.

During a trip to Normandy last week, Mr. Biden appeared to have persuaded France, one of the last holdouts, to support the deal. At the end of the trip, President Emmanuel Macron of France told reporters that he hoped “all members of the G7 will agree to a $50 billion solidarity fund for Ukraine.”

The Biden administration, after considerable internal arguments, had been pushing to outright seize the assets. But that idea fell flat in Europe, where most of the funds are held, out of concern that it would be a violation of international law.

The European Union did agree to use the interest that the central bank assets have been earning where most of them are held — in Belgium’s central securities depository, Euroclear — to provide Ukraine with about 3 billion euros annually.

But the Biden administration wanted to provide Ukraine with more funds upfront, so it devised a plan to use that interest to back a loan that the United States and other Group of 7 countries could deliver immediately.

The loan could be as large as $50 billion and would be repaid over time with the so-called windfall profits being generated from Russia’s money.

In recent weeks, finance ministers from the Group of 7 have been trying to hash out the complicated details of how such a loan would work, with several outstanding questions still to be answered. Officials have been trying to determine how the money would actually be transmitted to Ukraine, and have discussed running it through an institution such as the World Bank as an intermediary.

It is unclear how the loan would be repaid if the war ended before the bond matured or if interest rates fell, making the proceeds on the assets insufficient to repay the loan.

John E. Herbst, senior director of the Eurasia Center at the Atlantic Council, and a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, said that unlocking the assets was of principal importance for the Group of 7, especially after the stalemate in Congress and the United States’ delays in providing Ukraine with certain weapons.

“The administration has been quick to get aid to Ukraine once Congress moved, and that’s to its credit,” he said. “But we still are slow in getting Ukraine what it needs in terms of the right weapon system, especially right now. This is not just an American failure; it’s a failure of the entire alliance.”

The unlocking of frozen assets would be “a game changer,” said Evelyn Farkas, the executive director of the McCain Institute at Arizona State University, who previously served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia under President Barack Obama.

Ms. Farkas said that the U.S. delays likely “focused the European mind,” in making European countries think: “OK, we have to come up with alternatives because the U.S. is not reliable.”

“Hopefully,” she said, “they stay focused.”

Alan Rappeport contributed reporting.

Watch: Putin meets Kim as he arrives in North Korea

The two dictators are holding talks in Pyongyang as Russia looks to secure more arms for Ukraine war

Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un greeted each other warmly as the Russian president landed in Pyongyang on Wednesday for two days of talks with the North Korean leader.

Putin arrived for his first visit in 24 years , vowing to deepen trade and security ties with the reclusive nuclear-armed state and to support it against the United States.

Russian state media said Putin’s plane touched down in Pyongyang around 2.45am local time (6.45pm Tuesday BST) after a stopover in Russia’s far east.

The rare visit comes as North Korea becomes a key ally to Russia, sending five million artillery shells to Moscow since last summer and dozens of missiles in return for technical support on launching spy satellites.

The head of Russia’s foreign intelligence service expects “good results” from a meeting between Putin and Kim.

Sergey Naryshkin also said the West will be worried at the sight of two of its enemies in Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, on Wednesday 

“Probably, we expect some kind of provocation from the West regarding this problem,” he told Russia’s Tass news agency as Putin flew east for the meeting.

Putin is taking a high-powered delegation with him to North Korea, including five ministers in charge of the departments running his war in Ukraine .

North Korea has become a key war ally, sending dozens of missiles and five million artillery shells to Russia since last summer, in return for technical support on launching spy satellites.

In Pyongyang, streets have been decorated with Putin’s portrait and Russian flags. A banner hung on a building reads: “We warmly welcome the president of the Russian Federation.”

Andrey Belousov, Russia’s new defence minister , and his deputy for armaments are part of the Russian delegation – and Mr Naryshkin hinted that he expected more arms supply deals.

“We expect good results from the visit of the Russian president to North Korea. The visit is well-prepared. There will be results,” Mr Naryshkin said.

Artillery shells have become vital on Ukraine’s battlefields and analysts have said that North Korean supplies have allowed Russia to build a major advantage.

Yuri Ushakov, Putin’s aide and foreign policy adviser, briefed Russian media that Putin will sign a new “comprehensive strategic partnership agreement” with Kim after a meeting that will focus on “important and sensitive” issues “aimed at ensuring greater stability in the northeast Asian region”.

Afterwards, the two leaders will make statements before laying wreaths at a monument to Red Army soldiers and attending a concert and a state banquet.

Putin is the only Russian or Soviet leader to have visited North Korea. After he became president on New Year’s Eve in 1999, he rebuilt bilateral relations damaged under Boris Yeltsin because he regarded North Korea as a useful tool to needle the US.

Within two months, Putin had dispatched his foreign minister to North Korea to sign a “treaty of friendship, good neighbourliness and cooperation” in preparation for a trip to Pyongyang in July 2000 to meet Kim Jong-il, the father of the current president.

Kim Jong-il then travelled three times to Russia before he died in 2011. Putin rekindled bilateral relations last year, hosting Kim Jong-un in east Russia and persuading him to back the war in Ukraine.

Writing in North Korea’s Rodong Sinmun state newspaper, Putin thanked North Korea for its support for his invasion of Ukraine.

“We highly appreciate North Korea’s strong support for the Russian special military operation in Ukraine,” he wrote. “Pyongyang was and remains our staunch like-minded person and supporter.”

Putin’s visit coincides with high tensions on the Korean peninsula. On Tuesday, the day he was set to arrive, South Korea’s military fired warning shots after North Korean soldiers crossed the military demarcation line in the border area – the second such incident in a week.

Some 20 to 30 soldiers crossed over the line, which runs through the middle of the demilitarised zone (DMZ), by 65 feet before moving back north.

The South Korean military said it believed the North Korean soldiers had strayed across the line by mistake.

Putin is set to visit communist-ruled Vietnam for a two-day trip immediately after visiting North Korea, a move that has angered the United States, Vietnam’s largest trading partner.

Vietnam trip angers US

“No country should give Putin a platform to promote his war of aggression and otherwise allow him to normalise his atrocities,” a spokesperson for the American embassy in Hanoi told Reuters this week. 

“If he is able to travel freely, it could normalise Russia’s blatant violations of international law.”

Moscow has long enjoyed deep ties with Vietnam, with thousands of Vietnamese citizens studying in the Soviet Union during the Cold War – including the head of the Communist Party, Nguyen Phu Trong.

Historically, Russia has been Hanoi’s largest weapons supplier – and it continues to extract oil and gas from Vietnamese fields in the disputed South China Sea.

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