LAST UPDATE | 17 Jan 2023
UKRAINE’S FIRST LADY has called for international action to end Russian aggression during a rare international address at the World Economic Forum’s annual gathering in the Swiss town of Davos.
As the anniversary of the war in Ukraine nears, Olena Zelenska said 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 that “we cannot allow a new Chernobyl to happen”.
She criticised government leaders and corporate executives in a speech on Tuesday for not always using their influence enough.
With the war raising inflation and expanding food insecurity in developing nations, she called it “an insult to mankind and human nature to have mass starvation”.
She said the war could expand beyond Ukraine’s borders and worsen the crises but “unity is what brings peace back”.
Security teams fanned out and snow ploughs cleared streets as Zelenska and hundreds of government officials, corporate titans, academics and activists from around the world descended on the town for the traditional winter gathering.
Davos attendees are faced with global strife including the war in Ukraine, which has killed thousands of civilians, displaced millions, and disrupted food and fuel markets worldwide.
The gathering comes just days after a Russian missile hit an apartment building in the south-eastern Ukrainian city of Dnipro.
Rescuers today called off the search for victims of the Russian missile strike in the city of Dnipro with 20 people still missing and funerals taking place in the grief-stricken Ukrainian city.
The toll has climbed to 45 killed, making Saturday’s strike one of the deadliest attacks since Russia invaded Ukraine nearly 11 months ago, but the Kremlin denies responsibility.
“At 1:00pm (11:00 GMT) on January 17, search and rescue operations in the city of Dnipro at the site of the rocket attack were completed,” the state emergencies service said.
Saturday’s strike was one of the deadliest attacks since Russia invaded Ukraine nearly 11 months ago. The Kremlin denies that its forces were responsible.
Ukraine’s presidency said earlier that one of the bodies recovered from the rubble Tuesday was that of a child. Officials have said six children total were among the dead.
Municipal workers clearing out the partially collapsed Soviet-designed housing block removed more than 9,000 tonnes of construction debris and 41 damaged cars since the rescue work began on Saturday.
Although the toll from the Dnipro attack is the highest of any recent single strike, Ukraine said Tuesday that fighting was continuing across the frontline.
AFP journalists in the eastern town of Bakhmut witnessed heavy shelling.
Outside the city, servicemen dug new trenches while tanks and armored vehicles rolled passed.
“It’s like Verdun out there,” said military ambulance driver Ivan, referring to the notorious World War I battle.
Uncertainty still surround the fate of Donetsk’ war-scarred town of Soledar that Russia claims to have captured.
Capturing Soledar could improve the position of Russian forces as they push toward what has been their main target since October, the nearby transport crossroads of Bakhmut.
Both sides have conceded heavy losses in the battle for the town, with Moscow desperate to sell any win back home after repeated humiliations and Ukraine determined to hold – and win back – ground.
A Ukrainian military spokesman said again Tuesday that fighting was ongoing.
“The Ukrainian military is in Soledar and is repulsing the Russian army,” the spokesman for forces in east Ukraine, Sergiy Cherevaty, said.
The deputy head of Ukraine’s presidential office, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, said two people had been killed in the southern regions of Mykolaiv and Kherson by Russian shelling.
He also said two civilians were killed in the Donetsk region, which has been the epicentre of fighting in recent months.
Dozens of sessions at Davos today will take up issues as diverse as gender parity, the return of manufacturing, the green transition, efforts to end tuberculosis and the intersection of food, water and energy, which will feature actor Idris Elba.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Chinese Vice Premier Liu He are also among the speakers.
Zelenska’s speech comes after she told CNN through an interpreter on Sunday that despite Russia missile strikes that have pounded Ukrainian energy infrastructure and civilian areas in recent months, “we understand that upon carrying on for a year, we are capable of persevering for even longer”.
The high-level Ukrainian diplomatic push in Davos in the spotlight of CEOs, global government officials and the media offers a new chance to enlist and ramp up international support that the Ukrainians have been clamouring for – weapons like tanks and anti-rocket defences as well as greater pressure to further isolate and squeeze Russia’s economy.
France, the UK, the US and other nations are vowing to send increasingly powerful weapons to Ukraine, such as tanks or armoured combat vehicles.
The UK’s Foreign Secretary today warned Russian President Vladimir Putin that Britain will support Ukraine until they defeat the invasion, after Moscow was angered by London’s decision to send tanks.
“The message we’re sending to Putin – and, frankly, anyone else that cares to be watching – is that we made a commitment to support Ukrainians until they are victorious,” Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said on a visit to Washington.
Zelenska asked Congress for more US air defence systems as she visited Washington for a week in July and met US first lady Jill Biden at the White House.
Zelenskyy, after traveling to Washington himself last month to reinvigorate support for Ukraine in his first known trip abroad since the invasion, will be beamed in by video tomorrow to complement the in-person delegation of his wife and officials such as Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko, who urged company leaders to shun business with Russia.
“Stop trade with Russia: Every dollar that you send to Russia is bloody money,” he told reporters yesterday.
Additional reporting by AFP
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