How can Russia keep up the fight in Ukraine when sanctions are damaging it so massively? European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Tuesday that the unprecedented sanctions imposed on Russia over its war with Ukraine are “leaching” the Russian economy and Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s “war machine”.
“Ukraine must win this war,” von der Leyen said during an address at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
“And Putin’s aggression must be a strategic failure,” she added. “We will do everything we can to help Ukrainians prevail and take the future back into their hands.”
Von der Leyen noted that the European Union’s wide-ranging economic sanctions against Russia, as well as those of the United States and the United Kingdom, are crippling the Russian economy.
“Our sanctions and the self-sanctions of the companies themselves are weakening Russia’s economy and thus the Kremlin’s war machine,” von der Leyen said.
Trade experts have recently said Russia’s economy is “imploding” as exports to the sanctioned country collapse in the face of Putin’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, Insider previously reported.
During von der Leyen’s speech, she said the “playbook of Russian aggression against Ukraine” amid Moscow’s three-month war with the eastern European country that has left thousands dead in its wake “straight from another century.”
“To treat millions of people not as human beings but as faceless populations to be moved or controlled or used as buffers between military forces. Trying to trample the aspirations of an entire nation with tanks,” von der Leyen said.
She added: “It’s not just about Ukraine’s survival. It is not just a question of European security. This calls our entire international order into question.”
“And that’s why defending against Russian aggression is a task for the entire world community,” von der Leyen said.
Von der Leyen continued: “Hand in hand, we will help Ukraine to rise from the ashes.”
Additionally, von der Leyen said the 27-nation bloc EU has proposed more than €10 billion in financial aid to help Ukraine in “the largest macro-financial assistance package ever conceived by the European Union for a third country.”
“Ukraine is part of our European family,” said von der Leyen. “The Ukrainians withstood the brutal violence. They stand for their own freedom and for humanity.”
“We stand by them and I think this is a defining moment for the world’s democracies,” she said.
Natalie Musumeci
Natalie is a senior news reporter at Insider, covering breaking news. She joined Insider in June 2021.
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