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Washington’s G7 allies are warming to a US plan to rush tens of billions of dollars in funding to Ukraine before Donald Trump’s potential return to the White House.

Under the plan, set to be discussed at a June summit, Kyiv would receive money upfront from a G7 loan. The loan would be backed by future profits generated from around $350bn of Russian assets which have been immobilised in the west in response to Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Some G7 members have been reluctant to endorse the plan but their sentiments have shifted after a diplomatic push by the US, which is seeking to secure agreement at a summit of G7 leaders next month, according to eight western officials.

The plan would generate around $50bn to be disbursed to Ukraine as early as this summer, US officials have said. The funding would arrive at a crucial time for Kyiv as its forces struggle to hold the line amid a renewed Russian offensive following delays in delivery of western military aid.

The more reluctant G7 members have warmed to the plan as a way to ensure long-term funding for Kyiv if Joe Biden loses this year’s presidential election to Trump, who has opposed US aid to Ukraine.

It could be “done before November so, even if Trump wins, the money has already been deployed”, one person involved in the discussions said.

Officials from Italy, which holds the rotating G7 presidency, have said the summit will seek to reach consensus on how to “maximise the use of windfall profits to ensure the long-term financing of Ukraine”.

Negotiations are ongoing ahead of a meeting of G7 finance ministers and central bank governors in Italy in the coming week, when the issue will be discussed.

“I feel there is momentum and there is interest,” a senior US Treasury official said on Friday. “And what we’re involved in is trying to engage in hard, detailed economic diplomacy to make sure we can all get on the same page. And I think we’re making progress there.”

The US wants to include language in the joint G7 statement referring to leveraging the proceeds from Russians state assets — and has secured backing from Canada and the UK, the western officials said.

France, Germany, Italy and Japan have previously opposed more far-reaching US plans, such as seizing Russia’s underlying assets, fearing it could create a precedent for the seizure of state property and wreak havoc in financial markets. They have shown more openness in recent weeks to the idea of leveraging profits to generate loans for Ukraine, officials have said.

These four countries are “coming around”, one official said.

Details are yet to be agreed, however, the official added, including who would issue the debt — the US alone or G7 countries via a special purpose vehicle — who would guarantee it, and how risks and repayment would be shared in case the future profits don’t materialise.

The senior US Treasury official said any decision would be “fundamentally a political decision, one that’s going to be taken by leaders” of the G7 next month. “The goal is to have consensus coming out of the finance ministers to provide advice to leaders,” the US official said.

A different person familiar with the talks on Russian sovereign assets said the US was not driven by the timing of the election.

Separately, EU countries earlier this month agreed to use part of these profits to jointly buy weapons for Ukraine. Under that plan, Belgium’s central security depository Euroclear, where most Russian-sanctioned state assets being held in the bloc are stuck, would pay out the first tranche of profits as soon as July. 

The G7 scheme faced an additional snag, according to officials in Brussels, since any plan to leverage the profits would need a fresh unanimous decision at EU level. Countries such as Hungary could potentially cause more delays.

Additional reporting from Kana Inagaki in Tokyo and Martha Muir in Washington

The Republican Florida senator Marco Rubio said on Sunday he would not commit to accepting the 2024 presidential election results, insisting that “if it’s unfair” his party will “go to court and point out the fact that states are not following their own election laws”.

Rubio’s statements on Meet the Press come as he is considered among former president Donald Trump’s top candidates for vice-president. Trump has continuously said falsely that the 2020 election was stolen.

Those claims spurred the 6 January 2021 insurrection, during which participants stormed the Capitol building as lawmakers were in the midst of certifying the election results. Trump is facing a variety of charges related to alleged election meddling.

When asked by host Kristen Welker: “Will you accept the election results of 2024, no matter what happens, senator?” Rubio replied: “No matter what happens? No.

“If it’s an unfair election, I think it’s going to be contested … by either side.”

Welker kept pushing Rubio to answer whether he would contest the results “no matter who wins”.

“Well, I think you’re asking the wrong person,” Rubio said. “The Democrats are the ones that have opposed every Republican victory since 2000, every single one.”

Welker repeatedly pointed out that Democrats who had issues with election results nevertheless conceded. Rubio, in turn, asked repeatedly whether Welker had asked Democrats this same question.

Rubio – who did certify the 2020 election results, and said on that day that “democracy is held together by people’s confidence in the election and their willingness to abide by its results” – would not directly respond to whether Trump’s unwillingness to accept election results served to undermine confidence in democracy.

He also refused to criticize Trump for his comments on Florida’s six-week abortion ban, during which Trump called the law a “terrible thing, a terrible mistake” – despite also repeatedly claiming credit for overturning the federal protection for abortion.

“I support any bill that protects unborn human life, but I don’t consider other people in the pro life movement who have a different view to be apostate,” said Rubio, who has long pushed for strict limits on abortion. “They just have a different view about the best way to approach this issue. We are not like the Democrats where, unless you are in favor of their bills that basically say, ‘Let’s just put in all this fancy language, but it’s not meaningful in terms of any restrictions.’”

He played coy about whether he would agree to be Trump’s running mate in the 2024 presidential election, saying he had not discussed the possibility with Trump, but adding, “I think anyone who’s offered that job, to serve this country in the second highest office, assuming everything else in your life makes sense at that moment, if you’re interested in serving the country, it’s an incredible place to serve.”

“This is the graduation gown that I may or may not be wearing — if they let me walk. I’m leaving UChicago with a criminal record and maybe not with a degree. My name is Youssef. I’m a Brooklyn native. I’m half Palestinian, half Moroccan, and UChicago was definitely my dream school.” “Oh my God. I got to the University of Chicago. Mom!” “And during my time here my mission was to make it a dream school for other folks. And that sort of led me straight into the admissions office. I became a student visit coordinator. I gave tours. I got to act as a college rep. And that sort of bubble of being an ambassador for UChicago on the global scale popped when I started talking about my identity, and I started talking about being Palestinian and critiquing the university.” [chanting] [unclear] “We’ve been doing actions all year. Blockades, sit-ins, rallies, protests, banner drops, flyers, brochures — everything. We really just wanted a meeting with Paul, the president of the University of Chicago. So we wanted, like, financial records. We wanted transparency. We wanted to know where our money was going. And then we wanted the university to divest from all Israeli entities. And it took having to occupy a building and perform a sit-in. Like, 30 of us went into Rosenwald, which is the admissions office, and we just sort of set up camp.” [chanting] [unclear] “I was just thinking to myself, Oh, like, I’m going to be arrested.” [chanting] “You invest in genocide.” “The state attorney had made a statement that she wasn’t going to prosecute protest charges. So as soon as our charges were dropped, the university decided to go through the formal process for us, which means everything is on the table. We could be suspended. We could be expelled.” “We came back to join a national encampment movement.” “We won’t stop until we win.” “We actually were planning an encampment as well, prior to Columbia’s launch. Just seeing solidarity all over the country made us more confident to do this encampment.” “What do you know.” “Where does all our money go.” “Where does our money go.” “I have family in Palestine, and I’m living in Palestine. This is my 24/7. I mean, I’m done. Like, I have nothing left here. And that’s weird, like, coming from me, who spent so many years, not just, like, loving this university, but helping others love it. Like, I’m crushed that the university would ever do this. I feel like I have nothing left at the university here, but people in Palestine truly have nothing.”