President Volodymyr Zelensky (00:01):
My address will be short, about the time we are short of. About small minutes, about years made of this image.
(00:10)
Three years ago I spoke at Davos for the first time, in person. The topic was how to build a cohesive and sustainable world. And I’m talking online now. And the topic is how to cooperate in a divided, fragmented world. Conclusions they are obvious.
(00:37)
The world cannot keep the pace with changes and challenges. The list of crisis, global security, environmental, food security, energy wants, needs to be amended with another one: the time crisis. The list of calls for decisive, efficient joint actions needs to be extended with one more, the call for speed. The speed of decisions-making, reaction of the civilized world. Tragedies are outpacing life. The tyranny is outpacing the demands.
(01:24)
Russia needed less than one second to start the war. The world needed days to react with forced sanctions. The time the free world uses to think is used by the terrorist state to kill. Ukraine and its allies have been resisting it for almost a year. This period proved all our prompt actions brought positive results. The opening of European borders we pronounced, the grain deal, the energy unity. Together they saved millions, millions of lives. And not only in Ukraine. It is not only Ukraine, but the whole world needs exactly this pace of decisions and actions.
(02:16)
The world was hesitant in 2014, when Russia, without hesitation, occupied the Crimea. The world was hesitant in 2022, when Russia, without hesitation, made the war full scale. The world must not hesitate today and ever. When the evil seeks revenge, the world needs resolve and speed. Russia is exporting terror. Russia is spreading the strain of the war around the world. Ukraine offers the world a peace formula.
(02:54)
Please, 10 steps that the world must make faster than Russia makes its new moves. Mobilization of the war must outpace a next military mobilization of our joint enemy. The supplying of Ukraine with air defense systems must outpace Russia’s next missile attacks. The supplies of Western tanks must outpace another invasion of Russian tanks. The restoration of security and peace in Ukraine must outpace Russia’s attack on security and peace in other countries.
(03:33)
A tribunal for military crimes must prevent new ones. The expansion of NATO and the EU must outdo the spread of the Russian aggression. We routinely defend values, which some of the allies take for granted, as a fact of life. For us, the fact of life is the world in need of resolute and prompt steps.
(04:03)
Ladies and gentlemen, three years ago was my first time at the WEF. It was the time when the world was fighting COVID-19. It fought and won. Now the world is fighting against Putin.
(04:26)
In three years, we will be discussing new challenges and threats in Davos. What will this mean? It’ll mean we will definitely overcome the current threat. The history repeats itself. At first, the world either fails to notice or underestimates a threat. Then it unites to resist it, and then the world wins. Every time the same outcome. The world overcame Nazism, the apartheid, pandemics, the indifference to climate changes, financial crisis, and the Kremlin strain. The world will overcome again.
(05:22)
This is how much can be said in a matter of minutes. This is how much can be understood in a matter of minutes. The world will overcome again. The time is right to make it happen faster. Slava Ukraini.