The war in Ukraine found us at the heart of a multitude of crises, because we allowed ourselves to be dependent on Russia, Prime Minister Kiril Petkov said during a discussion at the 2022 World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos. PM Petkov added that we cannot respond to the war in the way we would like to because there has been no strategic thinking regarding the Eastern flank. We have no North to South corridors that would allow the passage of troops or commodities, he said. Kiril Petkov commented that in 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea, Europe was critical of Russia politically though it did not reduce its dependence on it. “In other words, we criticized it politically but our dependence grew,” Kiril Petkov stated.

As heavy fighting rages in Donetsk, in his nightly video address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky rejected the idea of Kyiv ceding any of its territory for a peace agreement with Moscow, something former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger called for in Davos. “The interests of Ukrainians must not be overlapped by the interests of those who are in a hurry for another meeting with the dictator,” Volodymyr Zelensky said.

Ned Price, spokesman for the US Department of State rejected Moscow’s proposal for the lifting of the sanctions against Russia in return for allowing the export of grain to the world markets.