Davos urged to up the sanctions
UKRAINIAN President Volodymyr Zelensky called for “maximum” sanctions against Russia during a virtual speech to corporate executives, government officials and other elites on the first day of the World Economic Economic gathering in Davos.
He said sanctions need to go further to stop Russia’s aggression, including an oil embargo, blocking all of its banks and cutting off trade with Russia completely.
He said it is a precedent that would work for decades.
“This is what sanctions should be: they should be maximum, so that Russia and every other potential aggressor that wants to wage a brutal war against its neighbour would clearly know the immediate consequences of their actions,” Mr Zelensky said through a translator.
On the day Starbucks said it had decided to close its 130 stores and would no longer have a brand presence in Russia, he also pushed for the complete withdrawal of foreign firms from Russia to prevent supporting its war and said Ukraine needs at least £4bn in funding per month.
“The amount of work is enormous: we have more than half a trillion of dollars in losses, tens of thousands of facilities were destroyed. We need to rebuild entire cities and industries,” Mr Zelensky said, days after the G7n leading economies agreed to provide £15.7bn in economic aid.
He said if Ukraine had “received 100% of our needs at once, back in February” in terms of weapons, funding, political support and sanctions against Russia, “the result would be tens of thousands of lives saved”.
Mr Zelensky’s speech was a key focus in Davos, the village in the Swiss Alps that has been transformed into a glitzy venue for the four-day confab ostensibly dedicated to making the world a better place.
Mr Zelensky, who received a standing ovation after his remarks, reiterated that Russia was blocking critical food supplies, such as wheat and sunflower oil, from leaving its ports.
Ukraine, along with Russia, is a major exporter of wheat, barley and sunflower oil, and the interruption of those supplies is threatening food insecurity in countries in Africa, the Middle East and parts of Asia that rely on those affordable supplies.
The head of the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) called for Ukraine’s ports to reopen, saying the region’s farmers “grow enough food to feed 400 million people”.
If such supplies remain off the market, the world could face a food availability problem in the next 10 to 12 months, and “that is going to be hell on Earth”, WFP executive director David Beasley said.
He warned there are “49 million (people) knocking on famine’s door right now in 43 countries”, including Yemen, Lebanon, Mali, Burkina Faso, Egypt and Congo.
He also told billionaires it is “time to step up” as the global threat of food insecurity rises – saying he has seen encouraging signs from some of the world’s richest people, like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos.