Zelenskyy leaves G7 early, citing Russia attack — without meeting Trump, or joint statement from leaders

Carney’s closing news conference has been moved back to 8 p.m. EST (6 p.m. local time).

He was originally going to take media questions before meeting with leaders from Mexico, India and South Korea, but is holding the meetings beforehand instead.

His news conference now starts at the same time his beloved Edmonton Oilers face the Florida Panthers in a bid to stay alive in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup final.

Carney's bilateral meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is underway. The two just had a quick photo op where they both made statements.

Carney's was markedly shorter than Modi's.

"It's a great honour to host you at the G7. India has been coming to the G7, I believe, since 2018 in Biarritz," he said. "It's a testament to the importance of your country, to your leadership and to the importance of the issues that we look to tackle together."

Those issues, Carney said, include "the future of artificial intelligence, the fight that we have against transnational repression, against terrorism and against other factors."

Modi, meanwhile, congratulated Carney for winning the federal election in April, and said he believes "India-Canada relations are extremely important and India and Canada should work together."

"We both stand for democratic values. Together, we can strengthen democratic values. We can strengthen humanity," Modi said.

The Indian leader’s presence has caused controversy amid tensions between the two countries that rose in recent years, notably after former prime minister Justin Trudeau blamed Modi's government for the killing of Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar on Canadian soil — which India denies.

Hundreds of protesters have gathered in Calgary to express their anger at Modi's invitation to the summit.

I'm just back from the Kananaskis summit site, where I spoke with sources from the Ukrainian delegation.

One of them told me Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is cutting his visit short. After G7 talks wrapped up, he was supposed to head to Calgary for planned events and a press conference. But that's no longer happening.

The source said Zelenskyy will head back to Kyiv after talks here wrap up. The change in plans comes after Russia's deadly attack in Kyiv overnight and after the G7 program changed.

U.S. President Donald Trump also left early last night, citing the Israel-Iran conflict.

Zelenskyy had travelled here to speak with Trump one-on-one and push for stronger sanctions against Moscow, and to put pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin.

But he’s leaving Canada today without that meeting or a joint statement of support from G7 leaders.

Rutte said raising the NATO spending target is important because adversaries "like Russia, but also China" are increasing their military activity.

"It's very difficult to get exactly into the head of Vladimir Putin — I stopped a long time ago to do that, but clearly we have to be ready for every eventuality," he said.

"We know that China is building up its armed forces. They are not doing that only for the parades in Beijing. They want to do something with all those ships and fighter jets, et cetera," he added, noting as an example that Taiwan is a direct target of China's.

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte says Canada and European allies will soon have to increase their defence spending to at least 3.5 per cent of their GDP to equalize their investments with the United States.

"That creates a stronger, a more equal, a more strongly based alliance going forward," Rutte said in an exclusive interview with CBC Power & Politics host David Cochrane. "I'm fairly confident that Canada and the whole alliance can do this.”

Rutte met with Carney earlier today. The prime minister has pledged to reach NATO’s long-held two per cent goal by March.

But the target is expected to increase shortly, with the military alliance's summit being held at The Hague next week — where Rutte says he will also have an extensive meeting with Trump.

Despite Trump's early departure yesterday, Rutte said he is confident the U.S. president is "completely committed to NATO, completely commited to Article 5 – 'an attack on one is an attack on all' clause … so there is no doubt."

While one was originally planned, there will be no joint G7 statement on Ukraine out of this summit because the Americans wanted to water it down and wouldn't agree to the final wording, a senior Canadian official told reporters on background at the summit.

Instead, some of the language around the war will be included in Prime Minister Carney's "chair's statement."

The Americans did not want some of the pointed remarks about Russia to be included in the joint statement because they feared it would compromise their negotiations with that country over ending their war, the official said.

The Canadian official said the Americans didn't object to the statement in its entirety — just some aspects of it, but they couldn't say which ones specifically.

Critical minerals is the subject of a particularly lengthy statement. With China controlling so much of the production and supply of these in-demand products, the G7 leaders are urgently focusing on diversifying their production — which could be to Canada's benefit, given how many of them can be found in this country.

And, as many parts of Western Canada burn — along with the U.S. and other countries grappling with a similar problem — the G7 leaders are promising to work closely to tamp down forest fires and implement a new "wildfire charter."

Essentially, they're going to "enhance interoperability" so firefighting equipment from one country can be used in the others, along with other commitments. The goal is for people to be more easily deployed where the need is greatest.

The leaders have agreed that AI should be used to "grow prosperity, benefit societies and address pressing global challenges,” Carney said.

Importantly, a big chunk of that statement talks about how the G7 should focus on "the potential of AI in our public sectors to drive efficiency and better serve our publics."

Carney has repeatedly talked about how AI can be used within the federal government — something that has rankled public sector unions worried about possible job losses.

On migrant smuggling, the G7 leaders are promising to "enhance border management and enforcement and dismantle the transnational organized crime groups profiting" from human trafficking.

They're going to use “financial intelligence" to better track down criminals who trade in people, and then seize their assets and "strip them of their profits." The G7 will also work with social media companies to stop traffickers from using those platforms for nefarious purposes.

Canada has just released the six joint policy documents that all G7 leaders — including U.S. President Trump — have agreed to sign after two days of discussion at this summit.

Notably, there wasn’t a joint statement on the war in Ukraine, and there isn't one expected. Trump has been critical of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who was here today to meet with Carney and others.

Unlike some past summits, there isn’t a single communiqué signed by all leaders. Canada was trying to show G7 unity by only developing and releasing joint statements that have a consensus.

The six statements released include new commitments on artificial intelligence, quantum computing, migrant smuggling, transnational repression, critical minerals and wildfires.

You can tell Carney had a hand in drawing up the list of policies to focus on at this summit — he's seized with AI and critical minerals, in particular, two issues he spoke about at length on the campaign trail.

Hosting the G7 summit has always been a massive logistical operation, and doubly so in an era of modern threats, like drones.

In the run-up to the summit, security officials made a concerted effort to warn those in the Calgary region about airspace restrictions, warning that unauthorized drones or aircraft would be met by RCMP or Canadian Forces aircraft and could be shot down as a last resort.

As of Tuesday at 2 p.m. MT, security officials say they’ve still just had the one serious air incident.

That took place Sunday, when the North American Aerospace Defence Command deployed fighter jets to intercept a civilian aircraft after it entered a no-fly zone in place for the G7 summit.

The aircraft eventually landed on its own power, and officials said they would investigate.

Air restrictions are set to lift tonight at 11:59 p.m. MT, but the broader controlled-access zone will remain in place until Wednesday.