January 18, 2023 Russia-Ukraine news

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday again reiterated his desire for Ukraine to join NATO, telling leaders gathered at the World Economic Forum that the alliance is the "best security guarantee for us."

On Tuesday, former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said that while Ukraine must be supported, Russia should be given the opportunity to be a member of the global order.

Asked about Kissinger's remarks regarding Russia's place in the world, Zelensky said "Russia has already earned a place among terrorists."

"Our priority today, our political task today is to see the different political leaders and figures, those who are still very relevant or have been relevant until recently, for them to be able to recognize the great mistake that Putin committed, for them to recognize this is Russia's aggression," Zelensky added.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky used his address to the World Economic Forum to call for speedier decision-making to combat Russian aggression against his country.

"The tyranny is outpacing the democracy. Russia needed less than one second to start the war. ... The time the free world uses to think is used by the terrorist state to kill. Ukraine and its allies have been resisting it for almost a year, this period proved all of our prompt actions brought positive results," he said via video to the crowd in Davos, Switzerland.

Zelensky said "the world was hesitant" when Russia took over Crimea in 2014 and then when it attempted to invade the whole country in February 2022.

"The supplying of Ukraine with air defense systems must outpace Russia's next missile attacks. ... The restoration of security and peace in Ukraine must outpace Russia's attacks on security and peace in other countries," Zelensky said.

He said he last addressed the forum three years ago, when the world was fighting Covid-19.

"In three years, we will be discussing new challenges and threats in Davos. What will this mean? it will mean We will definitely overcome the current threat. If history repeats itself at first the world either fails to notice or underestimates a threat, then it unites to resist it, and then the world wins every time," the Ukrainian president said.  

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the war has not looked good since it began and that the winter has slowed down progress.

He described the daily fights in the east and that progress has slowed down, but he added that Ukrainians stand strong and united against Russia's invasion.

"We are standing strongly, resolutely. I'm thankful to all of our warriors, the living ones and the ones we have lost for their bravery," he said. "It's really hard, but we are also strong inside the nation ... We are united, we are organized, because we are motivated. It wasn't us who started the war, but it was us who will have to end it."

He thanked the Western allies for their support in ammunition and economy, and said that the continued assistance will ensure that Ukraine succeeds in this war.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky asked attendees at the World Economic Forum in Davos to observe a minute of silence for the victims of the helicopter crash in the Kyiv suburb of Brovary and others who have lost their lives in the war.

“Fourteen of [sic] Ukrainian families lost their loved ones today and many more families are losing [their loved ones] daily because of the war," Zelensky said. "I shall ask you to honor the memory of every person Ukraine has lost with a minute of silence," he added. 

Ukraine's interior minister and others from his leadership were killed in the helicopter crash on Wednesday, according to officials.

The Ukrainian Security Services, the SBU, has launched an investigation into the crash, and posted on Facebook that “several versions of the tragedy are being considered.” They include: “Violation of flight rule, technical malfunction of the helicopter (and) deliberate actions to destroy the helicopter.” There has been no suggestion from any other Ukrainian officials about Russian involvement in this crash.

"Every death is the result of war," Zelensky said when asked by CNN's Fareed Zakaria about the crash after his remarks. “This is not an accident, this is war. And war is not only going on on the battlefield, there are different directions of war.”

"Everything which is happening, rockets that hit our people, civilians, what is happening with kindergartens, schools [...] every death is the result of war,” he added.

Watch Zelensky's comments on the helicopter crash here.

CNN's Lauren Kent contributed reporting to this post.

The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine on Wednesday held a moment of silence for the victims of the helicopter crash in Brovary.

"Denys Monastyrsky, Yevhen Yenin and Yuriy Lubkovych will always be remembered as true professionals, reliable and decent people, patriots of their homeland. They have done a lot for our victory and a better Ukraine. We will always remember them," he said.

"Once again, I would like to express my sincere condolences to the families of all the victims, especially to the parents who lost their children today," the prime minister added. "There are no words to describe the terrible grief and pain. May all the victims rest in peace."

The West has reached its latest fateful crossroads over Ukraine.

Looming decisions on deepening support for Kyiv’s fight against Russian President Vladimir Putin’s onslaught have been rendered even more critical by a winter battlefield that was more dynamic than the expected frozen stalemate.

Time is also fast ebbing for the US and its allies to send more powerful weapons and to train Ukrainian soldiers how to use them before the second, possibly decisive year of the war, which could see Russia launch a ferocious new offensive.

The aching humanitarian cost of the conflict and the justification for Western aid was, meanwhile, laid bare by the horror of a Russian cruise missile attack on a nine-story apartment block in Dnipro, in central Ukraine, that killed 45 people including six children. The tragedy exacerbated the depravity of an unprovoked war and renewed calls for Putin to face war crime charges. It also underscored that any hopes for a negotiated end to the war are more distant than ever, a fact that seems to have injected new resolve and unity into the Western alliance at a critical moment.

Partners are now committing tanks and armored vehicles to Ukraine. Several are joining the US in sending Patriot anti-missile missiles – steps that would have been off limits early in the war in order to avoid further provoking Putin.

Ukraine, given its desperate plight, will always want more. And while the West’s coming choices will ultimately be based on an assessment of its own interests, the context of Ukraine’s agony and courage is impossible to ignore.

“We are facing the collapse of the world as we know it, the way we are accustomed to it or to what we aspire,” said Ukrainian first lady Olena Zelenska at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Tuesday, in the latest heart-wrenching and well-timed intervention from Ukraine’s expert messaging effort.

The questions the West now faces are grave, but they are also familiar.

How far should NATO go in supplying Ukraine’s increasingly desperate calls for more numerous and more sophisticated offensive weapons? What is Russia’s red line before Western action provokes a massive escalation – possibly including the use of a battlefield nuclear weapon that could open a horrid new age of warfare and a risk of US-Russia conflagration?

Then there is the question of how much longer the political underpinnings of an extraordinary Western effort to save Ukraine will hold, in the United States and Europe – even if a mild continental winter has weakened Putin’s efforts to wage energy warfare against civilian populations.

Read the full analysis here.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told CNN that the helicopter crash in the Kyiv suburb of Brovary was a “new tragedy” for a country that has already suffered during the war.

He also told CNN's Julia Chatterley at the World Economic Forum in Davos that Ukraine needs more advanced weapons.

Stoltenberg said that allies were “stepping up” and that “if we want peace … then we need to provide military support to Ukraine.”

When asked about the issue of German-made Leopard tanks — which would need to be approved by Berlin before exporting from Poland or Finland — Stoltenberg said there is a “constant dialogue” between allies. He stressed that Germany has already provided aid to Ukraine but admitted the need for NATO members to provide more sophisticated weaponry.

Germany on Tuesday signaled a reluctance to approving the shipments unless the US sends its own tanks.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that the goal of what he calls the “special military operation” in Ukraine is to “end the war” in the eastern Donbas region, according to Russian state media RIA Novosti.

Speaking at a meeting with World War II veterans and survivors of the siege of Leningrad, Putin reportedly said that effectively “full-scale hostilities in Donbas have not stopped since 2014 — with the use of heavy equipment, artillery, tanks and aircraft.”

In late December, Putin used the word “war” to refer to the conflict in Ukraine, the first known time he has publicly deviated from his carefully crafted description of Moscow’s invasion as a “special military operation” 10 months after it began.

More on Donbas: The industrial Donbas region blankets much of eastern Ukraine and has been the front line of the country’s conflict with Moscow since 2014. The region’s long-standing industrial pull has attracted people from across Eastern Europe over the past century, and it has had strong social and economic ties to neighboring Russia as well as to the rest of Ukraine.

The distance from the capital Kyiv and other metropolitan centers has given rise to a vast collection of local movements, and that was the backdrop upon which pro-Russian separatists attempted to seize control following Moscow’s annexation of Crimea.

Putin’s annexation of Crimea and the occupation of parts of Donbas by Russian-backed rebels in 2014 brought to a crashing halt a period of increasing prosperity in the region.

War broke out in 2014 after Russian-backed rebels seized government buildings in towns and cities across eastern Ukraine. Intense fighting left portions of Luhansk and Donetsk in the hands of Russian-backed separatists.

CNN's Rob Picheta contributed reporting to this post.

Search-and-rescue operations have ended at the Brovary helicopter crash site, according to the State Emergency Service of Ukraine.

The service said 14 dead people were found at the crash site, including one child and nine people who were on board the helicopter. Interior Minister Denis Monastyrsky was among those killed on the aircraft, according to the ministry.