Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky thanked the G7 group of rich industrialized countries on Sunday after they expressed their support for Kyiv and urged Russia to withdraw troops and weapons from near the eastern border of Ukraine.
Leaders of the United States, Britain, Canada, France, Germany,, Italy and Japan reiterated their support for Ukraine and issued a statement calling on Moscow to end its destabilizing behavior after a three-day summit in the UK.
“Commend the unwavering support by #G7 states in the Summit’s communiqué,” Zelenskiy wrote in Twitter.
“Grateful to leaders for the continued support for Ukraine’s independence & sovereignty & the call to the aggressor to withdraw troops from Ukraine’s borders & Crimea. #Crimea is Ukraine!”
Kyiv hopes pressure from Western allies could force Moscow to withdraw tens of thousands of its deployed troops. in April near the eastern border of Ukraine and in Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014.
The West expressed concern about the worsening situation in the eastern Donbas region, where Ukrainian troops fought against Russian-backed forces in a conflict in which Kyiv claims to have killed 14,000 people since 2014.
Foreign Minister Anthony Blinken and NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg discussed the Russian military concentration near Ukraine.
Blinken and Stoltenberg discussed on Monday before the top diplomat’s trip from the USA to Brussels this week, “the immediate need for Russia to cease its aggressiveness”. military concentration on the borders of Ukraine and in occupied Crimea “as well as the prospects for promoting peace in Afghanistan, it said in a statement by the Foreign Ministry.
