G7 backs Ukraine as Zelenskyy says he wants to end war next year 

Leaders of the G7 alliance have reaffirmed support for Ukraine “for as long as it takes” as President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he wants to end the war through talks next year.

The Ukrainian president said in a radio interview aired on Saturday that his side will do everything possible so that the war with Russia’s invading forces ends in 2025 “through diplomatic means”.

The previous day, he said that the re-election of Donald Trump as United States president means that the war will likely end “sooner” than it otherwise would have.

Trump has said he wants to end the war immediately and Vice President-elect JD Vance has suggested that a Trump administration could favour letting Russia keep the Ukrainian land it has seized on the battlefield. But Zelenskyy said he “didn’t hear anything that goes against our position” when he spoke with Trump earlier this month.

For his part, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said Moscow will only accept an agreement if it sees Kyiv surrender the Ukrainian territory it has lost during the war.

A firefighter works at a site of an apartment building damaged during Russian missile and drone strikes, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Odesa, Ukraine on November 15, 2024 [Nina Liashonok/Reuters]

The Russian leader told German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Friday, during their first direct conversation in almost two years, that an agreement would also need to address the “root causes” of the conflict which, according to Putin, include NATO expansion.

As all sides prepare for the impacts of a Trump presidency on the war, the G7 affirmed its “support of Kyiv as the thousandth day of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine approaches”.

“Russia remains the sole obstacle to just and lasting peace. The G7 confirms its commitment to imposing severe costs on Russia through sanctions, export controls and other effective measures,” the leaders of the group said in a statement.

The intergovernmental group consists of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the US. Italy currently holds the rotating presidency until the end of the year.

In advance of Trump’s inauguration in January, Ukraine has been scrambling to secure more Western weapons and funding as the president-elect has heavily criticised US spending on aiding Ukraine.

The outgoing administration of President Joe Biden has pledged to strengthen its support for Kyiv in its remaining time in power.

Zelenskyy also conceded that the situation in eastern Ukraine was difficult and Russian forces were making advances.

Moscow’s forces are bearing down on Kurakhove, which has a thermal power plant and is only 7km (4 miles) from Pokrovsk, a large town that, for much of the war, has been one of Ukraine’s logistical linchpins.

On the battlefields of eastern Ukraine, Russia is now advancing at the fastest rate since the war’s earliest days in 2022.

North Korea has sent thousands of soldiers to the Russian region of Kursk to help Moscow fight off a Ukrainian incursion that started in August.

Russia’s Ministry of Defence said on Saturday that air defences downed 15 drones in Kursk, along with multiple other attacking aircraft in several other regions.