According to The New York Times on Friday, March 17, 2025, President Trump’s decision to open the door for Russia to rejoin the G-7 has been received in favor by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Despite warnings from some experts in the US, Yuri Ushakov, a foreign policy aide to Mr. Putin, has said that Moscow would consider this an important gesture.
The country was expelled from the G-7, or Group of Seven, which includes Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK, and the US, in 2014 as punishment for Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula. In 2017, Mr. Trump showed a willingness to approach Mr. Putin on dealing with issues of “international importance,” but his national security team has since advised him to avoid doing so. However, on Thursday, President Trump bid to improve relations between Russia and the United States during a phone call with Mr. Putin.
This move has been met with skepticism in Ukraine, with President Petro Poroshenko warning of the dangers of “appeasement.” Meanwhile, the Ukrainian president has said that Ukraine would not stop fighting for freedom, adding that Russian “aggression” must be stopped.
Under Mr. Putin’s leadership, Russia has also faced criticism for allegedly interfering in elections in other countries, including the US and the UK, which is cited among the reasons Ukraine mobilized soldiers on its eastern border in 2014, starting a conflict that has left more than 13,000 people dead. Acting US Ambassador to Ukraine Derek M. Pyatt has expressed reassurance that his nation’s commitment to Ukraine’s territorial integrity was “unshakeable,” but experts in the US acknowledge that Mr. Trump’s proposals are unlikely to sway the Kremlin either way.
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