G7 Statement on Support for Ukraine

We, the Leaders of the Group of Seven (G7), are steadfast in our solidarity with Ukraine, and reaffirm our unwavering commitment to support the government and people of Ukraine in their courageous defence of their country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and in their fight for a peaceful, prosperous and democratic future. We welcome the European Council’s decision to grant the status of candidate country to Ukraine and Moldova. We will continue to provide financial, humanitarian, military and diplomatic support and stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes. As we do so, we commit to demonstrate global responsibility and solidarity through working to address the international impacts of Russia’s aggression, especially on the most vulnerable.

Condemnation of Russia’s war: We remain appalled by and continue to condemn the brutal, unprovoked, unjustifiable and illegal war of aggression against Ukraine by Russia and aided by Belarus. We condemn and will not recognise Russia’s continued attempts to re-draw borders by force. This devastating war has produced dramatic consequences far beyond Europe. It constitutes a blatant violation of international law, in particular a grave breach of the United Nations Charter. It seriously undermines the international rules-based system that underpins global peace, prosperity, and security. We further condemn Russian attempts to replace Ukrainian democratically elected officials with illegitimate ones. We reiterate our demand that Russia put an end to this war of choice, and immediately, unconditionally cease all hostilities and withdraw its troops and military equipment from the entire territory of Ukraine within its internationally recognised borders. We reiterate our condemnation of Russia's unjustified use of nuclear rhetoric and signaling. Russia must abide by its international commitments, including those which ban the use of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons. We urge Russia to behave responsibly and exercise restraint, and reiterate that any use of such weapons would be unacceptable and met with severe consequences. In this regard we express serious concern after the announcement by Russia that it could transfer missiles with nuclear capabilities to Belarus.

Supporting Ukrainian Efforts to End the War: We are committed to helping Ukraine to uphold its sovereignty and territorial integrity, to defend itself, and to choose its own future. It is up to Ukraine to decide on a future peace settlement, free from external pressure or influence. We will continue to coordinate efforts to meet Ukraine’s urgent requirements for military and defence equipment. We will also continue to coordinate to provide Ukraine with the material, training and logistic, intelligence, and economic support to build up its armed forces

Commitment to Ukraine’s Security and Resilience: With a view to a viable post-war peace settlement, we are ready to reach arrangements together with interested countries and institutions and Ukraine on sustained security commitments to help Ukraine defend itself, secure its free and democratic future, and deter future Russian aggression. We stand ready to further strengthen Ukraine’s resilience by expanding our cooperation in intelligence and information sharing, information security, as well as maritime security. We will continue supporting Ukraine in defending its networks against cyber incidents and expand our cooperation in the fields of energy security, the safety and security of nuclear material and facilities, environmental, and water use issues. We will continue to support Ukraine in resisting threats to its democratic institutions and their common democratic values and principles, including through support for free media as well as countering disinformation and interference in democratic processes.

Humanitarian Assistance: Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine and the indiscriminate attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure, have caused immeasurable human suffering and loss of life. As a consequence, we witness today the largest displacement of civilians in Europe since the Second World War. As G7, we have provided and pledged more than USD 2.8 billion in humanitarian assistance so far in 2022. We underline our shared commitment to continue to provide substantial and ongoing humanitarian support to those affected by Russia’s war, in particular to protect the rights of women and children.

Supporting Internally Displaced Persons and Refugees: We reaffirm our resolve to protect and support forcibly displaced persons and refugees, and, to provide relief to host countries. We applaud the solidarity and efforts of all countries that support Ukraine by hosting refugees fleeing combat zones. We will enhance our support through the provision of short- and medium-term assistance, as well as strengthening access to a range of support services for those displaced and affected both in Ukraine as well as in other host countries. To this end, we endorse the Moldova Support Platform. We will seek to provide safe passage for refugees, including by further streamlining immigration procedures and visa requirements and strengthening efforts to prevent and respond to the heightened risk of human trafficking among the refugee population, who are disproportionately women and children. We aim to further facilitate the integration of refugees from Ukraine into our labour markets, to protect and ensure their labour rights, and to provide access to adequate social protection and education for as long as necessary.

Compliance with International Humanitarian Law: We call on Russia to comply with its obligations under international humanitarian law. We urge Russia to immediately provide for safe, rapid, and unimpeded humanitarian access and make safe passages work, enabling humanitarian aid to be delivered to besieged cities and civilians to reach safety towards a destination of their choice. Furthermore, we demand that Russia immediately allow the safe return of Ukrainian nationals taken often with force to Russia without their consent. We also underline the need to ensure protection for neutral and impartial humanitarian organisations and their aid workers operating in Ukraine. Russia and its proxies must respect international humanitarian law, including the rights and protections afforded to prisoners of war under the Geneva Conventions. We condemn the sham “trials” resulting in application of the death sentence to members of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

Accountability for War Crimes: There can be no impunity for war crimes and other atrocities. We condemn in the strongest terms ongoing attacks on civilians and noncombatants, the systematic targeting of critical infrastructure, schools and kindergartens, healthcare personnel and facilities, as well as conflict-related sexual and gender-based violence in Ukraine. We further condemn the deliberate targeting of Ukrainian cultural sites and regard the destruction of Ukrainian heritage by Russian forces – and suppression of the Ukrainian language and media in areas illegally occupied by Russia – as an attempt to wipe out Ukraine’s history and cultural identity. We welcome and support the ongoing work to investigate war crimes and other atrocity crimes, including by the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), the independent international commission of inquiry mandated by the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) and the work of the Expert Missions under the Moscow Mechanism of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe’s (OSCE) as well as the national investigations by the Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine. We welcome efforts to increase cooperation between all investigations taking place in Ukraine and will intensify our police and judicial cooperation with Ukraine as well as with relevant organisations. We welcome national investigative and jurisdiction efforts in line with the principle of universal jurisdiction where consistent with domestic law. The immediate perpetrators of war crimes and other atrocity crimes, as well as officials and military leaders responsible for their commission, must be held to account in accordance with international law.

Safe Haven for Dissidents Fleeing Russia’s Political Repression: We are concerned by the fact that Russia's brutal war of aggression against Ukraine is accompanied by ever stronger internal repression within Russia, especially against independent journalists, human rights activists and opposition figures, as well as ordinary citizens. We will make available protection to Russians who are persecuted by the Russian regime, as consistent with our national laws and requirements.

Increasing Food Security: Russia bears enormous responsibility for rising threats to global food security as a result of the conflict. Russia’s unprovoked assault on Ukraine – marked by bombing, blockades, and theft – has severely prevented Ukraine from exporting its agricultural products and is hampering its production capacity, leading to steep price rises and increasing global food insecurity for millions, especially those most vulnerable, such as women and children. We urgently call on Russia to cease, without condition, its attacks on agricultural and transport infrastructure and enable free passage of agricultural shipping from Ukrainian ports in the Black Sea. We are united and determined to strongly support Ukraine in producing and exporting grain, oil, and other agricultural products and we will foster coordinated initiatives that promote global food security and address the causes of the evolving a global food crisis.

Sanctions: We remain steadfast in our commitment to our unprecedented coordinated sanctions measures in response to Russia’s war of aggression, the impacts of which will compound over time. We are committed to sustaining and intensifying international economic and political pressure on President Putin’s regime and its enablers in Belarus, depriving Russia of the economic means to persist in its war of aggression against Ukraine, and we will continue our targeted use of coordinated sanctions for as long as necessary, acting in unison at every stage. Our use of sanctions is in defence of the rules-based international order that Russia has so egregiously violated. To this end, we endorse the annex on Supporting Ukraine Through Responsible Sanctions Against Russia.

In order to further intensify our economic measures against Russia, we collectively commit to taking the following measures in the days and weeks ahead, consistent with our respective legal authorities and processes. We will continue to explore new ways to isolate Russia from participating in the global market and crack down on evasion. We are determined to reduce Russia’s revenues, including from gold. We will also continue to target evasion and backfilling activities. We will further reduce Russia’s export revenues by taking appropriate steps to further reduce dependency on Russian energy, as articulated in the Energy section of our Communique. We will continue to coordinate on tariff measures on imports from Russia and explore possible pathways in line with our respective legislation to use the revenues to assist Ukraine where applicable. We will align and expand targeted sanctions to further restrict Russia’s access to key industrial inputs, services, and technologies produced by our economies, particularly those supporting Russia’s armament industrial base and technology sector. Finally, we will increase the costs of Russia’s war on Ukraine by imposing targeted sanctions on those responsible for war crimes, exercising illegitimate authority in Ukraine, and those standing behind Russia’s engagement in efforts to increase global food insecurity by stealing and exporting Ukrainian grain or otherwise profit illegitimately from the war.

As we impose severe costs on Russia and those who are complicit in its aggression, we will continue to assist the global economy and take action to help mitigate spillover effects, especially relating to humanitarian and other basic needs, and vulnerable populations. We will continue to ensure that in taking further measures, we are not targeting food and allow for the free flow of agricultural products and make every effort to minimise potential negative impacts and spillovers on third countries, in particular low- and middle-income countries. We are united in our commitment to fully implement and enforce these measures and remain vigilant against sanctions evasion and backfilling. Recalling the resolutions of the UN General Assembly on 2nd and 24th March 2022, we call on all countries around the world to stand with us in defending the principles of the UN Charter, and to join us by taking similar actions.

Financial and Economic Support: As of today we are ready to grant, or have pledged and provided up to USD 29.5 billion of budget support in 2022 to help Ukraine close its financing gap and continue ensuring the delivery of basic services to the Ukrainian people. Overall, this support is urgently needed and comes on top of the economic support provided since 2014 until 2021, which exceeds USD 60 billion. We welcome and support ongoing work across international financial institutions (IFIs) on further substantial financing to Ukraine, notably the financial support from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, including the Bank’s multi-donor financing vehicles for Ukraine and the establishment of the Fund’s Multi-Donor Administered Account for Ukraine. We look forward to additional planned support to Ukrainian state-owned enterprises and the private sector through the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the International Finance Corporation which amounts to USD 3.5 billion. We will support the EBRD, including through providing specific support to critical infrastructure, notably to guarantee EBRD loans to gas, power, and transportation companies. Across all our support, we are urgently working on accelerating disbursements of our financial commitments to Ukraine. Furthermore, we commit to assisting Ukraine in maximising its export potential. We task Finance Ministers to continue to work with IFIs and with Ukraine to assess and address its financing needs. We task G7 Trade Ministers to discuss concrete proposals to support Ukraine’s recovery efforts through trade, including for example suspending tariffs on Ukrainian exports.

Reconstruction: We recognise the devastating destruction of infrastructure, including basic social and public infrastructure, cities, industry, and agricultural facilities in Ukraine, and the urgent need for immediate reconstruction of critical infrastructure. We stand ready to support an international reconstruction plan, drawn up and implemented by Ukraine in close coordination with bilateral and multilateral partners and organisations in support of a sustainable, resilient, inclusive, and green economic recovery which enhances strong democratic institutions, rule of law, and anti-corruption measures. To this end, we welcome the Presidency’s initiative to convene with Ukraine an international high-level experts conference, to make progress on a comprehensive reconstruction plan. We support the World Bank Group’s support package to Ukraine and the EBRD’s Resilience Package, as well as ongoing work by the European Union and its Member States, considering a Ukraine reconstruction platform and a solidarity fund. Communities, civil society organisations, including women’s rights organisations, and the private sector should be active participants in planning Ukraine’s future. The recovery and reconstruction plan should build local resilience and social cohesion by ensuring that all members of society, particularly those most affected by the war, equally benefit. We are strongly committed to supporting Ukrainian reconstruction and will step up our respective efforts. We will also explore other viable options to support Ukraine’s humanitarian needs, early recovery, and reconstruction, including using frozen Russian assets consistent with our national laws. We call on all partners to join our efforts, and engage with us to help Ukraine to rebuild its future.