UPDATE - Ukrainian president invites companies to Ukraine instead of Russia

UPDATES WITH MORE REMARKS BY UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT

By Busra Nur Cakmak and Aysu Bicer

ANKARA (AA) - The Ukrainian president on Monday invited companies to come to his country instead of Russia.

In his address to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said: “Any company which leaves Russia is welcome to move to the Ukraine market, companies would benefit by truly supporting freedom.”

Zelenskyy called for “maximum sanctions” on Russian oil, banks, and the IT sector and not to trade with Russia.

“This is what sanctions should be: They should be maximum so that Russia and every other potential aggressor that wants to wage a brutal war against its neighbor would clearly know the immediate consequences of their actions,” said Zelenskyy.

“We offer the world the chance to set a precedent for what happens if you try to destroy a neighbor. I invite you to take part in this rebuilding,” he added.

Zelenskyy called for freezing or seizing all Russian assets and to be allocated to a special fund that would be used to help all those affected by the war adding that this will send a message to “every aggressor not to do what Russia has done."

“If the aggressor loses everything, that definitely deprives him of any motivation to start a war,” said Zelenskyy.

The Ukrainian president said that if his country received support sooner in terms of “weapons or decision in funding, political support, and sanctions against Russia, the result would be tens of thousands of lives saved.”

“This is why Ukraine needs all the weapons that we ask, not just the ones that were being provided. And that is why Ukraine needs funding. That's at least $5 billion per month, and all the funding that we need for rebuilding our country,” he added.

He said Ukraine has fought longer than expected but it would not have been the case if the world imposed tough sanctions last fall. He added that if there were a unity back in 2014 when Russia annexed Crimea, Russia would not have launched the “February’s invasion,” referring to the start of the Russia-Ukraine war on Feb. 24.

At least 3,838 people have been killed and 4,351 injured since the war began on Feb. 24, according to UN estimates. The true toll is believed to be much higher.

Nearly 6.5 million people have fled to other countries, while over 7.7 million people remain internally displaced, according to the UN refugee agency.