At Davos, Zelensky denounces the West’s half-hearted support for Ukraine

“Strengthen our economy, and we will increase your security.” With that call, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky ended his appearance at the World Economic Forum on Tuesday. It was classic Zelensky: tailor your message to your audience. The large hall in the luxurious conference center in Davos was filled with political and business leaders. They rewarded him with a standing ovation.

He depicted the Russian president as a warlike maniac. “Putin embodies war. He won’t change. We have to change. We must change so that the madness that resides in his mind, and in the minds of all aggressors, will not prevail.”

In his almost permanent lobby for more support, Zelensky personally visited Davos this year, where ‘Ukraine’ had to share attention with ‘Gaza’. He is looking for investors, weapons, money and support for his peace plan. In the morning he spoke to seventy CEOs in a closed session, and during the day he had meetings with, among others, the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, and EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

Zelensky thanked his allies, but he was also outspokenly critical of their half-heartedness and criticized their fear of escalation. The Western sanctions regime is nice, he said, but there are still advanced Western components in Russian missiles and the nuclear industry is still exempt from sanctions.

Germany has become the most important arms supplier after the US

He also criticized the West’s cautiousness. Too often, Ukraine was told: “do not escalate.” He turned his nose up at attempts to freeze conflicts, such as after the outbreak of war in the Donbas in 2014, when Germany and France pushed for a quick ceasefire, but the armed conflict, on the back burner, continued for years to come. continued. “Putin is a predator who is not satisfied with frozen products.” Even after the invasion in February 2022, the “failure to escalate” issue resurfaced. “Nothing was more damaging to our coalition than this concept. Every ‘non-escalation’ sounded to us like a ‘you will win’ against Putin.”

As the war enters its third year, Western support for Ukraine is faltering, but not drying up. The US Congress is blocking an important support package with arms deliveries, but the chances for a breakthrough are not yet gone. Zelensky said he hopes that everything will be fine within a few weeks. The EU is doing everything it can to reach an agreement on extensive budget support for Kyiv – 50 billion euros over 4 years – after Hungary torpedoed the plan at the end of last year. Zelensky said he had received “positive signals” about EU support.

The visit of British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to Kyiv at the end of last week was important. The United Kingdom is the first country to offer formal security guarantees. Because Ukraine cannot join NATO during the war, a number of NATO countries have promised to provide bilateral military support to Ukraine for the long term. The promises were made at the NATO summit in Vilnius last summer. The UK is the first country to convert its pledge into an agreement. In addition, Sunak has pledged military aid worth 2.5 billion pounds (2.9 billion euros) for next year.

Ukrainian peace plan

The new French Foreign Minister, Stéphane Séjourné, also traveled to Kyiv immediately after his appointment last week. France’s arms support lags behind other countries. To put pressure on EU partners to do more, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has asked the EU diplomatic service to once again map out exactly who delivered what. Although Germany is continually under fire for its hesitation in the supply of advanced weapons systems, it has become the most important weapons supplier after the US.

Meanwhile, peace talks are no closer. On Sunday, more than eighty national security advisors spoke in Davos with the Ukrainian government about a peace plan that Zelensky has been recruiting for for months. It was the fourth time that Kyiv discussed the plan in an international context. Each time the group became larger and more diverse. Originally a meeting of Ukraine’s Western allies, it now included 18 participants from Asia, 12 from Africa and 6 from Latin America.

The benefit of the meeting was that South Africa and Brazil, two BRICS countries that maintain good relations with Moscow, also attended. According to an insider, they also participated intensively in the conversations. China, which had participated in an earlier meeting, now failed to attend. There was speculation in Davos that Zelensky would meet with Chinese Prime Minister Li Qiang on the sidelines.

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A man in Kyiv looks at the damage from a house bombed by Russia on Friday. ” class=”dmt-article-suggestion__image” src=”https://images.nrc.nl/fde1Ce2ypki-Sx-5yef5TV6Z0TI=/160×96/smart/filters:no_upscale()/s3/static.nrc.nl/images/gn4/stripped/data109990665-47febe.jpg”/>

The peace plan is a blueprint for lasting peace. The ten-point plan was drawn up by former NATO boss Anders Fogh-Rasmussen and Zelensky’s chief of staff Andri Jermak. It is not a formula for starting negotiations, but a plan that Ukraine wants to put on the table with as much foreign support as possible if negotiations ever come to fruition, Jermak underlined in Davos. Switzerland has agreed to organize a conference on the peace plan at the level of heads of government.

Russia now says that it is willing to negotiate, but anyone who sees Putin’s statements knows that negotiating for the Kremlin is tantamount to Ukrainian capitulation. Putin, he said in mid-December, is aiming for the “denazification” and “demilitarization” of Ukraine. On January 1, he said he hoped to end the war quickly, but on his terms. On Tuesday he announced that it will prove impossible to retake the Russian-occupied areas in Ukraine.

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