Zelenskyy called Ukrainian reconstruction the “common task of the entire democratic world.”
QUICK FACTS:
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy spoke to the Ukraine Recovery Conference in Switzerland Monday to talk about his nation’s position now several months into its conflict with Russia.
- During his address, Zelenskyy laid out a $750 billion recovery plan that he thinks would assist the nation once they are no longer in active conflict. Ukraine’s GDP totaled $523 billion in 2021.
- The plan is aimed at meeting the nation’s need to rebuild, which Zelensky called the task of the “entire democratic world.”
- “The reconstruction of Ukraine is not a local project, is not a project of one nation, but a common task of the entire democratic world — all countries, all countries who can say they are civilized,” Zelenskyy told hundreds of attendees in Lugano.
- ”Restoring Ukraine means restoring the principles of life, restoring the space of life, restoring everything that makes humans.”
INTERNATIONAL RESPONSE TO UKRAINE’S TROUBLES:
- Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal suggested that the funding should come from “confiscated assets of Russia and Russian oligarchs.”
- The UK is considering following Shmyhal’s recommendation.
- The US, Spain, and the UK have already claimed or frozen assets owned by people connected to the Russian government.
- Ignazio Cassis, the President of Switzerland, voiced reluctance to confiscate private property and donate it to war victims, claiming a lack of a clear legal basis for doing so.
BACKGROUND:
- Thus far the United States has sent more than $54 billion in aid to Ukraine as the country fends off neighboring Russia.
- Included in that package was more than $100 million in security assistance to the Eastern European nation.
