The war in Ukraine, which turns three months this Tuesday, starred this Monday in the start of the Davos Forum, the great annual political and business event that is being held again after two years of absence due to the coronavirus pandemic.
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As is customary in many international forums, the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky was the special guest with a keynote speech delivered by videoconference from kyiv, in which he once again asked the international community to support Ukraine in confronting Russia’s aggression and to sanction that country even more severely.
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In this edition to which neither Russian officials nor companies from that country have been invited, Zelenski, dressed in the olive green shirt he has worn since the beginning of the war, began by denouncing the brutality of the Russian invasion and pointed out how, a few meters from the Congress Center where the forum takes place, the building of the old House of
Russia at Davos has been transformed into a war crimes exhibition.
Before the influential Davos audience, Zelensky called for a complete withdrawal of the
Russian foreign companiesto which he offered to continue operating in Ukraine and participate in the reconstruction of this country after the war.
He called for further tightening the pressure on Russia, with “convincing sanctions,” he said, “on oil, blocking all banks without exception, cutting off their access to technology, and the full withdrawal of foreign companies from the Russian market.”
And to these “we offer to continue operating in Ukraine, a market of 40 million people… I invite you to be part of the country’s reconstruction process, a great task… we must rebuild entire cities,” he said.
The Ukrainian leader urged decisive action, adopting “the maximum sanctions” against Russia in order to create a precedent and “so that Russia and any other potential aggressor who wants to start a brutal war against a neighbor know clearly what this leads to immediately.” .
Y Although he appreciated the international aid that Ukraine has received so far, he believed that it is still not enough.
In Ukraine “there are no longer peaceful cities but ruins, and instead of tourism, bombs and missiles, this is the result if we continue as before,” he warned, before the political and business leaders of Davos.
“It is important to do it as soon as possible, with weapons, with sanctions. That is why Ukraine needs all those weapons that we are asking for and not just those that are being provided to us. And that is why Ukraine needs financing, at least 5,000 million dollars a month,” he said. .
Also he urged that all Russian assets abroad be seized and put into a fund for those affected by the war.
Zelensky lamented that international unity and pressure against Russia had not started in 2014, “when the aggression really started,” referring to the annexation of Crimea and the war in Donbas.
“If this had happened then, maybe Russia wouldn’t have started this full-scale war and so many lives wouldn’t have been lost,” he said.
Zelensky pointed out that Ukrainian ports “are completely blocked” in the Black Sea and that Russian forces “are stealing our wheat day after day,” preventing grain exports.
“The priority is that our ports, blocked in the Black Sea, can work. How can you buy wheat that you know has been stolen by the Russians from Ukraine?” he asked.
For this reason, he highlighted the need for a corridor to be created to allow the export of cereals and said that he had spoken with foreign leaders, among others with the Baltic countries, in order to establish a corridor that would allow exports of wheat and other cereals, ten million tons.
“We have to agree on the creation of a corridor, so that
Russia cannot oppose it,” although he acknowledged that “it is not an easy solution as long as the war continues.”
Before finishing, the Ukrainian president, asked what his special wish would be for the leaders, asked that, above all, the feeling of unity not be lost.
Ukraine was also present in Davos with the participation in several debates of some deputies of the Rada (Parliament) and the mayor of kyiv, Vitali Klitschkó,
and his brother Volodímir, both former boxing champions, who claimed endurance and resistance to the Russian invasion.
The mayor wanted the war to end but not at the cost of a compromise with
Russia or the surrender of part of the territory.
“Even the last Russian soldier must leave Ukraine and we must maintain our territorial integrity. Then foreign investments must come,” he said.
INTERNATIONAL WRITING
*With information from Eph.
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