At Davos, Ukraine’s first lady urges support
Ukraine’s first lady on Tuesday pressed world leaders and corporate executives at the World Economic Forum’s annual gathering to do more to help her country at a time when Russia’s invasion is leaving children dying and the world struggling with food insecurity.
As the anniversary of the war nears, Olena Zelenska said parents in Ukraine are in tears watching doctors trying to save their children, farmers are afraid to return to their fields filled with mines and “we cannot allow a new Chernobyl to happen,” referring to the 1986 nuclear disaster as Russian missiles have pounded Ukrainian energy infrastructure for months.
“What you all have in common is that you are genuinely influential,” Zelenska told attendees. “But there is something that separates you, namely that not all of you use this influence, or sometimes use it in a way that separates you even more.”
She spoke as hundreds of government officials, corporate titans, academics and activists from around the world descended on the resort town. The weeklong talkfest of big ideas and backroom deal-making prioritizes global problems such as hunger, climate change and the slowing economy, but it’s never clear how much concrete action emerges to help reach the forum’s stated ambition of “improving the state of the world.”
“We are all internally convinced that there is no such global problem that humanity cannot solve,” Zelenska said. “This is more important now when Russia’s aggression in Europe poses various challenges.”
The war in Ukraine has killed thousands of civilians, displaced millions and jolted food and fuel markets worldwide. With the war raising inflation and expanding food insecurity in developing nations, Zelenska called it “an insult to mankind and human nature to have mass starvation.”
Ukraine and Russia had been key suppliers of wheat, barley and other food supplies to Africa, the Middle East and Asia, where many were already going hungry.
About 345 million people in 82 countries are facing acute food insecurity, according to the U.N. World Food Program, up from 135 million in 53 countries before the pandemic and war in Ukraine.
Zelenska warned that the war could expand beyond Ukraine’s borders and widen the crises but “unity is what brings peace back.”