President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday in Davos launched a “call for speed” in decision-making for aid to Ukraine, as Germany hesitated, for example, to authorize the delivery of Leopard tanks to his country. “Tyranny is advancing faster than democracies,” he lamented during a videoconference at the World Economic Forum meeting taking place this week in Switzerland. “The mobilization of the world must go faster than the next military mobilization of our common enemy,” he insisted.
A world that was slow to react, according to Zelensky
“Russia needed less than a second to start the war. The world needed days to react with the first sanctions”, he regretted, also recalling the times in the past when the world had been “hesitant” to react to actions “without hesitation” by Moscow, such as the occupation of Crimea. Pressure has been mounting in recent days on German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to quickly authorize the delivery to Ukraine of Leopard, very powerful combat tanks.
Any shipment of German-made war material must indeed receive the green light from Berlin and Finnish, Lithuanian, Polish and British leaders had again called on Tuesday for a quick decision. Olaf Scholz, who was speaking just before President Zelensky in the ski resort of Davos, made no announcement on the matter in his speech, two days before a crucial meeting of Western countries on aid to the Ukraine, held on Friday at the US military base at Ramstein in Germany.
A minute of silence for the victims of a helicopter crash
During a question-and-answer session at the end of his speech, Olaf Scholz was explicitly asked about sending Leopard 2 to Ukraine. “We are not only supporting Ukraine with financial means and humanitarian aid but also with a lot of weapons”, he contented himself with saying, without ever pronouncing the word “tanks”.
At the very beginning of his speech in Davos, Volodymyr Zelensky also asked for a minute of silence for the victims of the fall of a helicopter which occurred on Wednesday near kyiv. It was the aircraft carrying Ukrainian Interior Minister Denys Monastyrsky, killed in the crash that killed at least 14 people in total, including a child from a kindergarten, when he was going to the line front in the middle of the war with Russia.