Davos day three: 2024 will be ‘moment of truth’ for Ukraine; Hunt to ‘bang the drum’ for UK investment

Introduction: 2024 wil be ‘moment of truth’ for Ukraine

Good morning from Davos, where world leaders, business chiefs and other members of the global elite continue to attend the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting.

We start with Ukraine this morning, as UK foreign secretary David Cameron is attending the annual Ukrainian Breakfast discussion here.

The topic: Stand With Ukraine?

The event, which is also being attended by Poland’s president Andrzej Duda, is hosted by the Victor Pinchuk Foundation, and international investment advisory group EastOne.

Victor Pinchuk, the Ukrainian businessman and philanthropist, opens the event, warning that 2024 will be the “moment of truth” for Ukraine.

Pinchuk tells an audience of Davos delegates here that Ukraine’s international partners have provided a lot of support; Ukrainians are so grateful for this and we will never forget this, he says.

Bu, he warns, there is a difficult truth:

In war it does not matter if you did a lot. It matters only if you did enough.

Pinchuk says that without more support, Ukraine will have too little weapons to win.

Time is running out, he says, and we are at the critical point.

Pinchuk says 2022 was the year in which eveyone underestimated Ukraine. in 2023, everyone underestimated the aggressor. 2024 will be the moment of truth, he insists.

More to follow….

Also coming up today

UK chancellor Jeremy Hunt is also attending WEF today; he’ll be speaking on a panel about ‘technology in a turbulent world’.

The Treasury say Hunt will be championing British excellence in science and technology, and will “bang the drum on investment” into the UK.

Hunt says:

“I’ll be in Davos to tell the world that Britain, a nation of great innovation, is on the up and open for business.

“We boast some of the best and brightest businesses in sectors of the future like digital technology and life sciences. It’s these areas of strength that are going to drive growth across the UK economy in years to come.”

But, Hunt’s trip could be overshadowed by fears back home that Tata Steel will confirm plans to shut down much of its production at the Port Talbot steelworks during a crunch meeting with trade unions,

The Middle East conflict will also feature here in Davos, with Israel’s president Isaac Herzog and Iraq’s president Mohammed Shyaa Al Sudani both due to address delegates.

The agenda

7.30am CET/6.30am BST: Ukrainian Breakfast discussion, including Poland’s president Andrzej Duda, and UK foreign secretary David Cameron.
10am CET / 9am BST: A Conversation with Isaac Herzog, President of Israel
10.30am CET / 9.30am BST: A Conversation With Mohammed Shyaa Al Sudani, Prime Minister of Iraq
11am CET / 10am GMT: Technology in a Turbulent World, with Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, Marc Benioff, chair and CEO of Salesforce, Julie Sweet, chair and CEO of Accenture, Jeremy Hunt, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Albert Bourla, CEO of Pfizer
3pm CET / 2pm GMT: Russia: What Next? With European Commission’s Valdis Dombrovskis, Radoslaw Tomasz Sikorski, Poland’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Luminița-Teodora Odobescu, Romania’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Gabrielius Landsbergis, Lithunania’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Chris Miller, Associate Professor, The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University
3pm CET: A Conversation with Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Prime Minister of Greece

Key events

Rubenstein: Trump probably not as big a Ukraine supporter as we’d like

David Rubenstein, co-chairman of The Carlyle Group, the asset management firm, is also on this morning’s panel.

He’s asked whether American support could waver come November, the month of the presidential election.

Rubenstein replies that “it’s obviously difficult situation” in the United States because of the politics of this situation.

We all know that if President Trump were to be reelected, he is probably not as big a supporter of Ukraine as all of us would wish.

But, adds that Rubenstein the business community and others in the United States could influence Trump by putting some pressure on him.

So we shouldn’t view this as a lost cause, nor view it as a certainty that Trump will get elected, Rubenstein adds.

Canada’s finance minister Chrystia Freeland tells the Ukraine breakfast that the moral, political and legal case for using the frozen Russian central bank reserves for Ukrainian reconstruction “is strong”.

But she cautions…

We really recognise that this has to be something that allies do together, and that allies have to come to their own conclusions.

Davos – Duda, Cameron, Kuleba, Freeland, pretty clear there is agreement now on confiscating the $300bn+ in immobilised Russian assets and transfer to Ukraine. It is going to happen. G7 at end of Feb will sign off on it. Germany will have to roll-over.

— Timothy Ash (@tashecon) January 18, 2024

Freeland says Canada thinks it has $134 of frozen Russian funds – probably a sign that the Russian didn’t think Canada was a welcome place for their money.

“That’s not a bad thing, from our point of view,” she adds.

Freeland also warns that Putin thinks he’s going to win, because he believes that dictatorship is stronger than democracy.

I think democracy can win, I think democracy is better.

Lord Cameron is then asked about Ukraine’s call for European defence capabilities to be aligned – is that realistic?

Cameron says he thinks it is, but it’s definitely the area where the greatest amount of attention is needed.

He says countries such as Britain, France and Poland have been going through their inventories of weapons, to find what they can give to Ukraine, and also bought up a huge amount of legacy area era Soviet equipment from around the world to resupply the Ukrainians.

Coordinating production with multi-year contracts is a clear demonstration that “we’re in this for the long term”, Cameron adds, and is one of the most important outcomes from meetings such as WEF.

Cameron also calls for the sanctions put in place against Russian individuals and entities to be properly policed. Just putting sanctions in place isn’t enough.

He says:

We’ve got to make sure that third countries aren’t going round the sanctions.

Dmytro Kuleba, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, tells this morning’s Ukraine breakfast that Ukraine has been encouraged and reassured by the reception that president Zelenskiy received in Davos this week.

Asked what Ukraine most needs, Kuleba says there are two things – air defence, and the use of Russia’s frozen assets.

Air defence means planes, missiles, interceptors and radio electronics, he says.

And if Ukraine can protect its skies, and throw Russia out of them, it will be in a much stronger position.

Kuleba also pushes for Ukraine’s supports to build better cooperation between their defence industries, to ensure the sustainability of supplies.

On the frozen assets, he says Russia must pay for the damage in Ukraine, and doesn’t buy the arguments that there are legal constraints within financial regulations that prevent them being used.

The assets frozen in only three countries, Britain, Luxembourg and Switzerland, would fund the repair of all infrastructure damage in Ukraine, such as airports, bridges. and roads, Kuleba says.

If you also take the 180bn euros of Russian assets frozen in the Euroclear system in Belgium, that would fund a wider recovery effort and repair hospitals and schools,

Lord Cameron adds that Ukrainians are incredibly brave and incredibly united.

He reveals that someone said the other day that president Zelensky’s approval rating has slipped from 90% to 80%.

Cameron jokes that he used to dream about 40%, never mind 80%, when he was prime minister.

David Cameron: This is like the 1930s

Next up, Lord Cameron, who says the Ukraine war is the “struggle of our generation”.

This is like being a foreign minister in the 1930s, he says. And we know from those days that if you appease aggression, you get more of it.

Britain is “right behind Ukrainians in this struggle for as long as it takes”, Cameron insists.

He reminds us that Rishi Sunak has pledged £2.5bn of British support for the next year, and urges colleagues in America and in the European Union to bring forwards their own, larger packages.

Cameron’s message to American colleagues is that they have spend 10% of their defence budget, and achieved a 50% destruction of Russia’s pre-war military equipment without the loss of a single American life.

That is an amazing investment, Cameron adds.

He also repeats a point he made yesterday – if you zoom out, the war has been a strategic disaster for Putin, who has lost half the territory he took in the invasion two years ago.

Cameron says:

He’s lost half his military equipment. He’s had 300,000 casualties, [he’s seen] NATO get bigger and stronger with the addition of two highly capable countries in Finland and Sweden. He’s lost 20% of his Black Sea Fleet to a country that only has a relatively limited navy.

Poland’s president Duda then urges world leaders not to become fatigued over the Ukraine war.

He warns about a “coalition of evil” which is prepared to take risks to run the global order.

Duda says that if Putin prevails in Ukraine, it would send a clear signal to the whole of the world, and encourage his supporters to ramp up actions against the Western world.

Ukranians must decide their own future, he continues – no-one else can decide it.

And the conflict will only end with Moscow’s full retreat. They are the aggressor, who attacked an independent and sovereign country, Duda continues.

And if Russia were to win, Putin would not stop with Ukraine, Duda fears.

Other countries, such as in Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, Central Asia, might be become Russia’s next victim, he warns.

Duda: Putin decided to set the world in fire

Andrzej Duda, the president of Poland, says that Vladlimir Putin has decided to “set the world on fire”.

Duda warns the Ukrainian breakfast event that:

I’m absolutely sure that we can say, 30 years after the Soviet Union collapsed, that now we are witnessing the rebirth of Russian imperialism in its bloodthirsty version.

Without any doubts, Putin decided to set the world in fire.

Duda reminds us that we are still witnessing the biggest armed conflict in Europe since the end of the Second World War.

And he urges Davos delegates to visit an exhibition here, documenting Russian war crimes in Ukraine.