DAVOS: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Thursday (Jan 22) blasted the EU’s lack of “political will” in countering Russian leader Vladimir Putin, during a fiery address criticising some of Kyiv’s top allies at the World Economic Forum.
The speech to the Davos elite came minutes after Zelenskyy had met with US President Donald Trump, a conversation which he said brought agreement about what post-war US security guarantees for Ukraine would look like.
Zelenskyy did not say what the security guarantees included, only that they were “done” and were ready to be signed by the leaders and ratified by the Ukrainian parliament and US Congress.
But in a marked departure from his usual warm rhetoric towards the EU, Kyiv’s main political and financial backers, Zelenskyy slammed what he cast as inaction, drawing parallels with the cult film “Groundhog Day” to describe the slow progress on key areas of support for Kyiv.
“What’s missing: time or political will?” he said at one point, referencing delays over the establishment of a European war crimes tribunal on the Russian invasion.
He also said Europe, without mentioning any single country, was failing to agree on how to address global problems.
“There are endless internal arguments and things left unsaid that stop Europe from uniting and speaking honestly enough to find real solutions,” Zelenskyy told the forum.
“Instead of becoming a truly global power, Europe remains a beautiful but fragmented kaleidoscope of small and middle powers,” he added.