Biden: G-7 Countries Will Ban Russian Gold in Response to Ukraine War

Biden: G-7 Countries Will Ban Russian Gold in Response to Ukraine War
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, European Council President Charles Michel, U.S. President Joe Biden, Italy's Prime Minister Mario Draghi, Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Germany's Chancellor Olaf Scholz and France's President Emmanuel Macron attend a working lunch on the first day of the G-7 summit at Schloss Elmau, near Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, on June 26, 2022. (Jens Krick/Pool via Getty Images)

President Joe Biden on Sunday announced that Group of Seven countries will ban Russian gold in response to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.

“The United States has imposed unprecedented costs on Putin to deny him the revenue he needs to fund his war against Ukraine,” Biden said Sunday. “Together, the G7 will announce that we will ban the import of Russian gold, a major export that rakes in tens of billions of dollars for Russia.”

A formal announcement is scheduled for Tuesday, according to the White House.

Biden and other world leaders will meet on the summit’s opening day Sunday to discuss how to secure energy supplies and tackle inflation, aiming to keep the fallout from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine from splintering the global coalition working to punish Moscow.

In recent years, gold has been one of the top Russian exports after energy—reaching almost $19 billion or about 5 percent of global gold exports, in 2020, according to the White House. The United States imported less than $200 million in gold from Russia in 2019, and under $1 million in 2020 and 2021.

Earlier on Sunday, Russian missiles struck an area in Kyiv, killing at least one person, said an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office.

“The Russians hit Kyiv again. Missiles damaged an apartment building and a kindergarten. Russia should be designated a state sponsor of terrorism ASAP,” Andriy Yermak, the advisor, wrote on Twitter, adding that Ukraine “needs modern missile defense systems badly.”

Also Sunday, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson seemed to make note of the lack of attention that’s being focused on Ukraine—especially amid decades-high inflation and gas prices.

CNN’s Jake Tapper asked Johnson a leading question about how America and the West can “combat Ukraine fatigue at a time when so many Western nations are struggling with real issues at home? And do you worry at all that the tying of the war in Ukraine with higher energy prices might cause people in the UK [and] in the United States to say, ‘you know what, it’s not worth it?'”

Johnson replied by saying that “it is” worth it to continue to provide support to Ukraine because it would be “absolutely catastrophic” if Russian President Vladimir Putin succeeded. The United States has provided tens of billions of dollars in military aid to Ukraine since the conflict started on Feb. 24.

Referencing the White House’s commitment of $46 billion to aid Ukraine, Johnson told the outlet that “I would argue that is a price worth paying.”

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was quoted by The Associated Press as saying that Western sanctions on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine are having “a profound impact,” adding that “even as [Russia] gets oil revenues with higher prices it’s unable to spend them because of the export controls.”

Moscow, he said, “can’t acquire what it needs to modernize its defense sector, to modernize its technology, to modernize its energy exploration, which means that over time each of these areas is going to go in decline.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

From The Epoch Times

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