HIROSHIMA, Japan — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, making a dramatic and impassioned plea for the richest global democracies here to continue supplying Ukraine with arms and money, mourned the destruction in Bakhmut, a city in ruins that Russia claims to have taken.
Asked during a Group of Seven summit meeting with President Biden whether Bakhmut was still in Ukraine’s hands, given that the Russians say they’ve taken control, Zelensky responded: “I think no. But you have to understand, there is nothing.”
His spokesman Sergii Nykyforov later clarified on Facebook that Zelensky’s “no” was referring to Russia’s assertion that it has taken the city, saying Zelensky denies those claims.
But buildings have been destroyed, Zelensky said, and all that remains is ground “and a lot of dead Russians.”
“For today, Bakhmut is only in our hearts, and there is nothing on this place,” Zelensky said, while praising Bakhmut’s defenders: “They did strong work, and of course we appreciate them for their great job.”
It was a somber note as Zelensky arrived in a city that was severely damaged nearly eight decades ago by a U.S. nuclear bomb. He came warning anew about the threats of nuclear weapons and the risks for his war-tattered country that is seeking to one day rebuild in the same way Hiroshima has become a vibrant industrial hub.
Biden, in remarks ahead of the meeting with Zelensky, said the United States would supply Ukraine with another phase of military assistance, a $375 million tranche that Biden described as “a package that includes more ammunition artillery, armored vehicles to bolster Ukraine’s battlefield abilities.”
“The United States continues to help Ukraine respond, recover and rebuild,” Biden said.
Zelensky spent much of the day in meetings but was expected in the afternoon to visit the Peace Memorial Park, the epicenter where the atomic bomb was dropped in 1945, and hold a news conference in the evening. Throughout the day, he received hugs, handshakes and pats on the back.
“Together with all of our allies and partners, we have achieved such a level of cooperation which ensures that democracy, international law, and freedom are respected,” he wrote on Twitter amid his meetings. “There have been attempts to ignore and disregard what we value. But now it is impossible. Now our power is growing.”
He called for keeping democracies united.
“The more we all work together, the less likely anyone else in the world will follow Russia’s insane path,” he added. “But is this enough? Democracy needs more. I think we need the clear global leadership of democracy. This is the main thing that we provide with our cooperation.”
Later in the day, he wrote an emboldened message stating that Ukraine won’t negotiate with Russian President Vladimir Putin until troops are withdrawn.
“As long as invaders remain on our land, no one will sit down at the negotiating table,” Zelensky wrote. “The colonizer must get out. And the world has enough power to force [Russia] to restore peace step by step.”
In the morning, Zelensky met with other leaders at a hotel. They posed for photos briefly, with Zelensky leaning over to Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and saying, “Thank you.” After about a minute of rearranging themselves and posing for photos, Biden came over to Zelensky, draping his arm around him and speaking into his ear as they left the room.
During a later meeting, Zelensky was notably seated next to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has remained neutral about the war.
“The Ukrainian situation, and the international community, is faced with challenges over peace and stability,” Kishida said to start the meeting. “How can we respond to these challenges? I hope we can deepen our discussion on those themes.”
Before the discussion began, and before Zelensky spoke, reporters were ushered out of the room.
Zelensky met on Sunday afternoon with Biden, a discussion that came a few days after the Ukrainian president won a significant victory when White House officials said they would allow allied nations to send F-16s to Ukraine and that the United States would train Ukrainian pilots. That decision, a significant reversal after Biden had maintained that the fighter jets were unnecessary, came after Zelensky had for months requested the advanced aerial capabilities to bolster his country’s counteroffensive.
The shift was the result of extensive discussions among White House officials and diplomacy with allies around the world.
In the weeks leading up to the G-7 summit, national security adviser Jake Sullivan traveled to London, in part to iron out the details of the F-16 issue, according to U.S. officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private deliberations. While there, he met with European officials, including the British, French and Germans, to discuss the logistics of training the Ukrainians, and the Dutch and the Poles to discuss the potential delivery of the fighter jets. The trainings are likely to take place in Europe, U.S. officials said. The Netherlands and Poland have F-16s, making them central to the effort to provide Ukraine with them.
Upon returning to Washington, Sullivan briefed Biden on the discussions and the broad support among U.S. allies to give the planes to Ukraine. That paved the way for Biden to tell his G-7 counterparts at the summit that the United States would support training Ukrainian pilots, paving the way for countries to eventually send F-16s to Ukraine.
Zelensky’s trip, which had been kept under wraps until the day before he was to arrive, immediately has become the most dominant theme for a summit that was also designed to focus on climate change, combating China’s economic and military rise, and coming up with international standards for rapid advancements in artificial intelligence.
He landed late Saturday afternoon, dressed in his signature army green, and walked down the stairs of a French plane to board a waiting motorcade. Riding through the streets of Hiroshima, with police officers standing at nearly every corner, he arrived for several meetings with foreign leaders.
One of his first was with Modi, the first time the two have met since the war began.
In his remarks, Modi said he would do everything he could to find a solution to the conflict: “For me, this is an issue of humanity and humanitarian values. You would know the challenges and pain of war more than any of us”
He held meetings late into the evening with every top leader here, including French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
Zelensky released an upbeat video late on Saturday to the citizens of his country, calling his meetings hopeful and productive.
“As always, I’m thankful to our warriors,” he said. “To everyone who protects the Ukrainian land, the Ukrainian sea and the Ukrainian sky. We are sure we will return from this visit with even greater opportunities for you, our defenders.”
It was Zelensky’s first visit to Asia to mobilize for the war, but he has traveled extensively this month to try to keep the international community behind Ukraine’s fight, including visits in recent weeks to capitals in Germany, France and Britain.
Zelensky’s appearance at the informal grouping of the world’s largest economies — which included Russia just a decade ago — showed how much the geopolitical landscape has shifted in the aftermath of Putin’s invasion. Russia was kicked out of the group, known previously as the G-8, in 2014 after Moscow’s illegal annexation of Crimea.
Now, the leaders of the remaining seven countries have banded against Russian aggression once more, and this weekend, leaders sought to consistently reinforce that message.
Despite a leaky lead-up, Zelensky’s meeting with Scholz in Berlin culminated with a promise to provide Ukraine with air defense systems and more tanks. Then came a surprise trip to Paris, where Macron announced that armored vehicles and light tanks would be headed to Ukraine. During Zelensky’s U.K. visit, Sunak said Ukrainian forces will get “hundreds” of missiles and drones; London also offered to help other countries send fighter jets to Ukraine.
Ukraine will also continue shipping grain around the world after a NATO- and Turkey-brokered deal to extend a Black Sea initiative between Kyiv and Moscow, an agreement that gives Zelensky’s nation an economic lifeline.
The Mideast diplomacy continued Friday, when Zelensky stopped in Saudi Arabia to request more support from Arab League leaders. That meeting included Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who was attending for the first time since being suspended from the group 12 years ago after his crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators triggered a deadly civil war.
Not every development has gone Zelensky’s way this month.
Although damage from a midweek missile strike on the U.S.-provided Patriot air-defense system was repaired, attacks on Kyiv were some of the heaviest in months, prompting overnight sirens and unnerving capital residents while their president was traveling to shore up support.
Amid his efforts to secure more assistance from Asian allies, Zelensky also met Sunday with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, whose country sits on a huge supply of artillery shells that Ukraine says it desperately needs and has faced sustained pressure from Western countries to send lethal weapons directly to Kyiv.
Zelensky announced on Twitter that he thanked Yoon for South Korea’s humanitarian and nonlethal assistance and that he looked forward to “continued cooperation.”
South Korea has so far declined to supply lethal weapons to the war effort, citing its concerns over its relationship with warring countries. Seoul has been wary of driving Moscow closer to Pyongyang, out of fears that Russia would retaliate by helping North Korea advance its nuclear and weapons programs. U.S. officials have said that Russia is already providing food and other commodities to North Korea in return for weapons.
Zelensky and Kishida are set to meet Sunday evening for the first time since Kishida’s March trip to Ukraine as the final G-7 leader to make the trek to Kyiv to show support.
At the time, Zelensky called the Japanese leader “a truly powerful defender of the international order and a longtime friend of Ukraine.”
In a news conference concluding the summit Sunday, Kishida said that it was “truly worthwhile for the G-7 to have invited President Zelensky to Japan to show the G-7’s unwavering solidarity with Ukraine.”
Kishida said by inviting Zelensky, the leaders were able to send a “strong message to the world” about their support for Ukraine and their condemnation of Russia’s invasion.
“Wherever in the world, attempting to unilaterally change the status quo by force can never be accepted,” he said.
