G7 summit live: world leaders gather in Italy with Ukraine and Israel-Gaza wars on the agenda | G7

Kate Connolly reports for the Guardian from Berlin

The Ukraine Recovery Conference has just concluded in Berlin, where the main focus was on how to raise money for short and long-term reconstruction, even as the country remains under vicious attack, with many participants acknowledging that “Ukraine Resilience” would right now be a more fitting title. On the sidelines, Tymur Pistriuha, head of the NGO Ukrainian Deminers Association, spoke to the Guardian about the urgent, ongoing need to put de-mining at the centre of any talk of recovery.

“As our deputy prime minister (and minister of economic development and trade) Yulia Svyrydenko has pointed out, without humanitarian de-mining, so-called mine action, recovery cannot happen. It’s good that this is understood, but it has not been as prominent on the agenda here in Berlin as much as in the past, and it’s the absolute starting point for any recovery and reconstruction. We need to scale up,” he said.

At the previous recovery conference in London last year the issue was more widely discussed, Pistriuha said. Currently 144,000 square kilometres of Ukrainian territory counts as potentially dangerous due to landmines and unexploded ordnance (UXO), and requires urgent intervention.

The speed with which this is happening has improved over time. Pistriuha pointed out that around six months ago the affected area was 174,000 square kilometres. “We’ve already released 30,000 square kilometres,” he said – referring to the term according to which land is deemed safe, after being inspected and cleared of UXO – “which is like the size of the territory of Albania.

“It’s tremendous, but the scale of the problem is still huge.”

The day to day impact of this he said, is measured by the “crucial statistic” of human victims. Officially, there have been around 1000 victims – both killings and injuries – from mine and explosive ordnance, since the start of the full-blown invasion in 2022. But according to the Ukrainian Demining Association’s own database, the real figure is far higher, at about 2,500, due to underreporting, and a lack of access to some areas.

The problem greatly affects everything from Ukrainian agriculture to critical infrastructure, spanning “everything from the energy sector to the forest to underwater areas,” Pistriuha said.

He recently took part in a mine action symposium in Croatia – itself still affected by landmines and explosive remnants of war as a legacy of the conflict there in the early 90s – and in October a donor conference to raise funds for demining activities in Ukraine will take place in Lausanne. “So it is on the agenda,” he said.

One of the most crucial strands of his association’s work is explosive ordnance risk education. “I have 60 mobile teams travelling throughout Ukraine to provide face to face instruction sessions. But Ukraine is a huge country and it’s not enough.”

Angela Giuffrida in Rome and Ashifa Kassamin Madrid report for the Guardian

Giorgia Meloni’s government has been accused of scrapping a reference guaranteeing access to “safe and legal” abortions in the text of the G7 summit’s final declaration.

Citing sources from G7 member delegations, the Italian media reported on Thursday that a sidebar clause on abortion rights had been left out of a last draft of the final declaration circulated on Wednesday.

The clause, pushed especially by France and Canada, had been intended to reinforce an agreement by the G7 members in Japan last year that they would guarantee “effective and safe access to abortion”.

It also committed to sexual and reproductive health rights for all, “including by addressing access to safe and legal abortion and post-abortion care”.

Sources in Meloni’s office denied the reference had been removed, telling Ansa news agency the declaration was still being negotiated and that “everything that will be included in the final document will be final points resulting from the negotiations”.

Antonio Tajani, the deputy prime minister, told Sky TG24: “The various delegations are in talks, and it is premature to make an analysis and useless to make predictions. We will see what the agreement will be.” He emphasised that while abortion would be discussed at the G7, Ukraine and the Middle East were priorities.

A source close to the negotiations told AFP that since 2021 there had “been a mention of ‘safe access’”, but “Meloni doesn’t want it”.

Read more of Angela Giuffrida and Ashifa Kassam’s report here: Italy accused of scrapping safe abortion guarantee from G7 declaration

Patrick Wintour

Patrick Wintour is in Puglia for the Guardian

Joe Biden and Volodymyr Zelenskiy will sign a 10 year bilateral security agreement on behalf of their two countries at the G7 summit as arguments continued on the sidelines about how the West is to deliver on its plan to provide a Trump-proof $50bn loan to the Ukrainian government.

The bilateral security agreement is the 16th such bilateral security agreements that Ukraine has signed, and will help to speed the modernisation of the Ukrainian army. Ukraine had hoped for more than two years that the US would be the first to sign, but in the end the talks took more than a year, and the US is now the last of the G7 countries along with Japan to sign.

The agreement is not a treaty that requires the authorisation of Congress and could be undone by a future Trump administration. Biden has previously said the gauarantees for Ukraine are equivalent to those enjoyed by Israel, so covering financial and military assistance, as well as the possibility of the joint production of weapons

The two leaders will to stage a press conference to hail the agreement where differences over a timetable for Ukraine’s bid to join Nato, and the introduction of foreign military trainers inside Ukraine are likely to be on view. The bilateral agreements have also been viewed Ukraine as a stopgap before joining Nato.