A man fighting for the life of his country against an invader should be forgiven the passion and colour of his language when calling for help from his friends.
Volodymyr Zelensky’s stinging rhetoric was very much his own at Davos when he called Europe a “salad”.
“Dear friends, we should not degrade ourselves to secondary roles, not when we have a chance to be a great power together. We should not accept that Europe is just a salad of small and middle powers, seasoned with enemies of Europe,” the Ukrainian president thundered.
The World Economic Forum was silent at the rebuke. Global leaders, business titans, European bureaucrats, squirmed.
Here they were faced with the grizzled figure that Vladimir Putin’s special forces have consistently failed to kill, who leads a nation freezing at home at -20C while its soldiers defend Europe and had to swallow their diminished proportions.
As his country approaches the fifth anniversary of Putin’s full-scale invasion but the 12th year of its defence against Russia, Zelensky reminded the Europeans in the audience just how little they had done.
They had failed to come up with a united front on Greenland, he told them. They had failed to support the “bloodbath” in Iran. He was grateful for the support Ukraine had had – but he was looking for more from Europe in an age when the old order was being torn up.
He goaded Europe by marking the actions that the man who is doing most to shatter the old order has taken.
“President Trump led an operation in Venezuela and Maduro was arrested. And there were different opinions about it. But the fact remains, Maduro is on trial in New York.
“Sorry, but Putin is not on trial. And this is the fourth year of the biggest war in Europe since World War II,” Zelensky observed.
Ukraine’s president was picking up on a theme that has emerged at Davos: that it is time for the “middle powers” in Europe to realise that, along with the UK and Canada, they can form a powerful block in their own right.
“Too often, Europeans turn against each other, leaders, parties, movements, and communities, instead of standing together to stop Russia, which brings the same destruction to everyone.
“Instead of becoming a truly global power, Europe remains a beautiful but fragmented kaleidoscope of small and middle powers.
Instead of taking the lead in defending freedom worldwide, especially when America’s focus shifts elsewhere, Europe looks lost trying to convince the US president to change, but he will not change.
President Trump loves who he is, and he says he loves Europe, but he will not listen to “this kind of Europe”.
Another dig from Zelensky there – “this kind of Europe”. He means a spineless Europe that is slow to stand up for the values it claims it has.
He didn’t need to spell it out, but it was clear that when Europeans did stand up to Trump and threaten a trade war over Greenland, the US president backed down.
”One of the biggest problems in today’s Europe, though it’s not often talked about in their mindset. Some European leaders are from Europe, but not always for Europe. And Europe still feels more like geography, history, a tradition, not a real political force, not a great power.
“Some Europeans are really strong, it’s true, but many say we must stand strong and they always want someone else to tell them how long they need to stand strong, preferably until the next election. But that’s not how great power works, to my mind. Leaders say ‘We must defend European interests,’ but they hope someone else will do it for them.”
Zelensky’s was the loudest, most impressive voice in calling on Europe to step up to embrace its own potential power.
Mark Carney, Canada’s prime minister and the president of Finland, Alexander Stubb, made the same calls to arms along with Keith Kellogg, until recently Trump’s special envoy to Kyiv.
The latter two both argued that Russia could not win the war against Ukraine.
There has been a marked shift in the understanding of the war, with expert opinion now subverting the Russian and American narrative that Kyiv is losing and cannot win. Military experts and Davos delegates have been hearing and saying the opposite.
Zelensky’s address was a call for help to get his country into a winning position and with an eye on a future European Union with Ukraine inside it. He was the underdog shaking Europe by the scruff of the neck.
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