More weapons and “maximum” sanctions: three months after the invasion of his country by Russia, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called on Monday in Davos for faster international aid.
” Punishments […] should be maximum, so that Russia and any other potential aggressor who wants to wage a brutal war against its neighbor clearly knows the immediate consequences of its actions”, he said during a videoconference intervention for the day of opening of the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF).
At a time when kyiv says it is facing an “increasingly difficult” situation in the Donbass (east), under intense Russian bombardment, Mr. Zelensky also called for more weapons for his country, regretting that the support of the international community has not always been quick enough.
“If we had received 100% of our needs in February, the result would have been tens of thousands of lives saved. That’s why Ukraine needs all the weapons we ask for, not just the ones that have been supplied,” he said.
“We need weapons more than anything else,” Anastasia Radina, a Ukrainian parliamentarian who came to Davos, had already told the press on Sunday evening.
Ukraine needs weapons “like those of NATO”, including tanks, air defense systems, fighter planes, she detailed, considering that the military aid received so far, ” it is still not enough”.
“After three months of war, and tens of thousands of lives lost, we are still discussing whether we need fighter jets. Frankly, it’s scandalous, ”she lamented.
“No trade with Russia”
The Ukrainian government is also calling for an intensification of sanctions against Russia, which it would like to completely isolate from international trade.
“There should be no trade with Russia,” said Mr. Zelensky on Monday, calling among other things for “an embargo on Russian oil” and measures against “all Russian banks, without exception”.
Western countries have implemented a whole series of economic sanctions against Russia. But if the United States and the United Kingdom have given up importing Russian oil, the European Union is struggling to agree on the subject, because some of its member countries are very dependent on gas and oil. Russians.
“We understand that Europe is trying to estimate the cost this will have for its economy. But on the other side, there is Ukraine, there is a real war”, insisted the Ukrainian Minister of Economy, Yulia Svyrydenko, who also came to Davos.
“Russia wants to destroy Ukraine […] and threatens the world with famine. We definitely don’t have time for analysis. We need to cut Russia off from the civilized world, completely,” she said.
Ukraine takes center stage this week in Davos, where the meeting of global political and economic elites organized by the WEF returns after a two-year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Many Ukrainian politicians have planned to make the trip there in person, including several ministers, parliamentarians, or the mayors of kyiv and Boucha.
The founder of the WEF, Klaus Schwab, welcomed a “particularly strong delegation of Ukrainians”, but on the other hand excluded this year the Russians, who usually represent a large contingent of participants.
And the “Russian house” of previous editions gave way to a “Russian war crimes house”, where an exhibition of photos of the victims and damage caused by the invasion was inaugurated on Monday.
“I believe that the World Economic Forum is the place where Ukraine should be present and speak about the crimes of the Russian Federation”, underlined the mayor of Boutcha, Anatoly Fedoruk.