DAVOS, SWITZERLAND —
Ukraine’s first lady Olena Zelenska asked the World Economic Forum on Tuesday to do more to help end the war. “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”, Olena said
Olena also said she planned to hand the letter to Chinese Vice-Premier Liu He – who spoke after her – for passing on to President Xi Jinping.
she would deliver a letter to China’s delegation setting out President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s proposals for ending Russia’s war against his country.
China, like Russia a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, is an important partner for Moscow and has refused to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
As the anniversary of the war nears, Olena Zelenska said that parents are in tears watching doctors trying to save their children, farmers are afraid to go back to their fields filled with explosive 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 who descended on the town billed as Europe’s highest. 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, which 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.