Ukraine can prevail against Russia but needs to be supported: EU’s Von der Leyen

ATHENS

EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Tuesday that Ukraine can prevail against Russia but it needs to be supported.

She said Russia has lost half of its military capability in Ukraine and it succeeded in driving Russia out of half the territories it had captured and pushed back Russia's Black Sea Fleet.

“Russia is failing on strategic goals," she said during an address to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

She said Russia’s failure is obvious in military, diplomatic and economic domains.

“All of this tells us that Ukraine can prevail in this war. But we must continue to empower their resistance,” said Leyen, and stressed that Ukraine needs predictable financing as well as a sufficient and sustained supply of weapons.

She also asserted that Russia’s weaponizing of natural gas, on which the EU heavily depended prior to the war, led the bloc to diversify its sources of supply and invest more in renewable energies even though it initially hit manufacturers and consumers in the Union.

Underscoring that not only the Union but the world experiences an era defined by “conflict and confrontation, of fragmentation and fear,” Leyen urged greater cooperation in the world and democratic consolidation.