The Group of Seven (G7) industrialised nations will hold an online meeting after 1200 GMT to discuss Russia’s actions in Ukraine, Japanese Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki said on Wednesday.
Suzuki, who made the comment in parliament, did not specify whether the meeting would be held among G7’s financial leaders or other representatives.
Video: Russia-Ukraine | US makes light of Russia’s retaliatory sanctions
SNAPSHOT: Ukraine and Russia: What you need to know right now
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said peace talks which resume on Wednesday were sounding more realistic but more time was needed, after Russian airstrikes killed five people in the capital Kyiv and the refugee tally from Moscow’s invasion reached 3 million.
DIPLOMACY
US President Joe Biden will make his first visit to Europe since Russia invaded Ukraine to discuss the crisis with NATO allies next week, the White House said.
Zelenskiy said Ukraine may seek security guarantees from theWest that fall short of NATO membership – a possible path to compromise.
The prime ministers of Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovenia travelled to Kyiv by train to demonstrate Europe’s solidarity with Ukraine.
CIVILIAN TOLL
The confirmed civilian toll in Ukraine is 691 people killed and 1,143 injured, the United Nations human rights office said,adding the true figures were probably “considerably higher”.
Kyiv imposed a 35-hour curfew after intense shelling, which killed at least five people.
FIGHTING
Russia said its forces had taken full control of the southern region of Kherson.
Ukraine reported that 19 people had been killed in a strike ona TV tower in Rivne.
Reuters could not immediately confirm the reports. Russia denies targeting civilians.
FLEEING
About 3 million people have fled Ukraine, nearly half of them children, according to the UN refugee agency. About 1.8 million are now in Poland and some 300,000 in Western Europe.
About 2,000 cars left the besieged port city of Mariupol. Ukraine accused Russia of blocking a convoy trying to take supplies.
Convoys of more than 100 buses ferrying civilians have left the besieged northeastern city of Sumy, the Red Cross said.
MORE SANCTIONS
The United States imposed sanctions on Russians it accused of gross human rights violations and slapped fresh measures on theBelarusian president.
Russia retaliated by sanctioning Biden, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and others.
The EU hit Moscow with fresh sanctions, including bans on Russian energy sector investments, luxury goods exports to Russia, and imports of steel products from Russia.
ECONOMY
Nine out of 10 Ukrainians could face poverty and extreme economic vulnerability if the war drags on over the next year, wiping out two decades of economic gains, the UN Development Programme said.
Russia’s sanctions-ravaged government is teetering on the brink of its first international debt default since theBolshevik revolution, with $117 million in interest on two dollar-denominated sovereign bonds due Wednesday.
QUOTES
“It is our duty to be where history is forged,” Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said of the three leaders’ trip toKyiv.* “They’re destroying everything: memorial complexes, schools,hospitals, housing complexes.
They have already killed 97 Ukrainian children. We are not asking for much. We are asking for justice,for real support,” Zelenskiy said in an address to Canada’sparliament.
“It’s becoming clear that Putin’s Ukrainian gamble has been a miscalculation that may very well destroy the man himself,” Australian Defence Minister Peter Dutton said in Canberra.
“Hehas, for one, very seriously underestimated the Ukrainian people. Ukrainians have been unyielding in their resolve to live independent, prosperous and free.”
