We need to act now to stop Putin, Zelensky tells security conference

Munich [Germany], February 18: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has called on his country's allies to ramp up support in the fight against the Russian invasion, saying his country's fighters are only limited by their weapons.
Ukraine has already dispelled numerous myths in nearly two years of bloody fighting since Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a full-scale invasion, Zelensky said in a speech on Saturday at the Munich Security Conference.
"Ukrainians have proven that we can force Russia to retreat and that we are capable of restoring the rules. And with this, we leave absolutely nothing of the key Russian myth, that Ukraine supposedly cannot win this war," Zelensky said. "We can get our land back and Putin can lose. This has already happened more than once on the battlefield." Ukraine's efforts are only limited by an "artificial deficit of weapons" - particularly long-range missiles and artillery - imposed on the country by its allies and supporters, Zelensky said.
Zelensky was in southern Germany on the second day of the 60th edition of the Munich Security Conference, an annual gathering of top political and defence officials to debate international security policy. "If we don't act now, Putin will succeed in turning the next few years into a catastrophe," the Ukrainian president told the conference.
Zelensky's comments came after the address by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who called on EU partners to follow Berlin's example and ramp up aid for Ukraine, saying it is in member states' own security interest to do so.
For the current year, Germany has almost doubled its military aid to more than 7bn euros ($7.5bn), with commitments for the coming years totalling 6bn euros, the German leader said.
He very much hoped "that similar decisions would be taken in all EU capitals," Scholz said.
Zelensky expressed his thanks for new security agreements signed with Germany and France on Friday, which contain promises of long-term support and further arms deliveries but do not commit French or German troops to defend Ukraine.
However, Zelensky also warned urgently of the consequences of the war: the longer it lasts, the greater the risk of it spreading and further damaging the international order.
"If we don't act now, Putin will mange to make the next few years catastrophic for other nations as well," Zelensky said, warning that a victorious Russia could destroy Ukraine and then threaten the Baltic states and Poland. Zelensky's comments on the range of weapons appeared to be at least partially a reference to Scholz's refusal so far to provide German-made Taurus cruise missiles, despite repeated pleas from Ukraine.
Source: Qatar Tribune