Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky made a passionate plea to leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, urging them not to allow Russia\u2019s war in Ukraine to become \u201cfrozen.\u201d <\/p>\n
Speaking in person at the conference for the first time since Russia launched its full-scale invasion nearly two years ago, Zelensky said Ukraine had defied expectations in repelling Moscow\u2019s forces for so long and that its allies \u201cknow what\u2019s needed\u201d to allow \u201cprogress on the ground,\u201d which has been in short supply for many months. <\/p>\n
At the start of Zelensky\u2019s address, which he delivered in English, he said he understood many in the audience would be asking difficult questions: \u201cWhen will the war end? Is the third world war possible? Is it time to negotiate with Putin?\u201d <\/p>\n
Zelensky warned \u201cany frozen conflict will eventually reignite,\u201d pointing to how Russia renewed its aggression after \u201cattempts to freeze the war in the Donbas\u201d after 2014. Instead, he said Ukraine needed to be provided with more weapons to bring about a \u201cjust and stable\u201d peace. <\/p>\n
Putin\u2019s war was less than a year old when Zelensky last spoke at Davos via a video link in January 2023. Ukraine had then recently liberated the cities of Kherson and Kharkiv, which had been occupied in the early weeks of the war, and Kyiv was beginning to prepare for a broader counteroffensive it hoped would yield greater gains still. <\/p>\n
A year on, those gains have failed to materialize. The head of Ukraine\u2019s armed forces, Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, warned in November that the war had instead entered a \u201cstalemate,\u201d and that without technological improvements there would \u201clikely be no deep and beautiful breakthrough,\u201d but an equilibrium of devastating losses and destruction. <\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Ukraine\u2019s allies have been distracted by Israel\u2019s war against Hamas \u2013 which is threatening to spark into a regional conflagration \u2013 and many will soon be distracted further by their own elections. Also speaking Tuesday at Davos, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called 2024 \u201cthe biggest electoral year in history.\u201d <\/p>\n
But, despite these setbacks, Von der Leyen stressed that Ukraine had far exceeded expectations at the war\u2019s outset, which she said was a cause for optimism. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe haven\u2019t forgotten that when Russia invaded Ukraine, many feared that Kyiv would fall in just a few days and the rest of the country within weeks. This did not happen. Instead, Russia has lost roughly half of its military capabilities,\u201d Von der Leyen said, claiming Russia had failed militarily, economically and diplomatically. <\/p>\n
Speaking later on Tuesday, Zelensky echoed this message, saying Ukraine began its defense \u201cat a time when almost no one in the world believed in Ukraine. But we turned the tables, so that now the world has stopped believing in Russia.\u201d <\/p>\n
He said \u201ceven Putin\u2019s current buddies in Pyongyang and Tehran\u201d were exploiting him, \u201cusing his madness while he still has technologies and resources to pay them. No one believes in his future or invests in it.\u201d <\/p>\n
While expressing his gratitude to his allies, Zelensky also criticized their timidity and sluggishness in refusing to provide Ukraine with better weapons sooner. He said that the West\u2019s fear that doing so would \u201cescalate\u201d Russia\u2019s war had denied Ukraine the chance to make military gains and emboldened Putin. <\/p>\n
\u201cEvery \u2018Don\u2019t escalate\u2019 to us sounded like \u2018You will prevail\u2019 to Putin,\u201d Zelensky told the heads of state gathered at Davos. He said \u201cnothing harmed our coalitions more than this concept,\u201d stressing that the West should have been quicker to call Putin\u2019s bluff and Moscow\u2019s baseless threats. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe asked for new types of weapons, and the response was \u2018Don\u2019t escalate.\u2019 But then weapons arrived and there was no escalation,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Zelensky did not refer to specific weapons which he alleged Ukraine\u2019s allies were slow to provide. But <\/strong>allies spent months debating whether to provide Ukraine with, for instance, cluster munitions, Leopard 2 tanks, and F16 fighter jets. Each time they voiced their fears that Putin would use the supply of weapons as a pretext for \u201cescalating\u201d the war, which Zelensky said wasted time and lives. <\/p>\n \u201cBecause of \u2018Don\u2019t escalate,\u2019 time was lost,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd the lives of many of our most experienced warriors, who fought since 2014, were lost. Some opportunities were lost.\u201d <\/p>\n Zelensky urged his allies not to make the same mistakes again: \u201cEvery reduction in pressure on the aggressor adds years to the war, but every investment in the confidence of the defender shortens the war. <\/p>\n \u201cWe must gain air superiority for Ukraine, just as we have gained superiority in the Black Sea. We can do it. Partners know what\u2019s needed and in what quantities. This will allow progress on the ground,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n Speaking at Davos shortly before Zelensky, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said only continued support for Ukraine would make Putin to relent. <\/p>\n \u201cWhat we can do is to just maximize the likelihood that at some stage President Putin will understand that to continue this war will have too high a price, and then at some stage he has to sit down and negotiate some kind of just, lasting peace, where Ukraine prevails as a sovereign, independent nation,\u201d Stoltenberg said. <\/p>\n \u201cAnd the paradox is that, if we want that to happen\u2026 the way to get there is [to send] more weapons to Ukraine. The more credible we are in our military support, the more likely it is that the diplomats will succeed.\u201d <\/p>\n\n Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky made a passionate plea to leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, urging them not to allow Russia\u2019s war in Ukraine to become \u201cfrozen.\u201d Speaking in person at the conference for the first time since Russia launched its full-scale invasion nearly two years ago, Zelensky said Ukraine had defied <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":14151,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-14150","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14150"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14150\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}