Ms Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze:

Chair, members, and Her Excellency, the ambassador, I am first and foremost very grateful for the opportunity to talk with you directly. I also want to underline my gratitude to our ambassador of Ukraine, H.E. Ms Larysa Gerasko, for doing such a great job by connecting us and helping to facilitate this dialogue between the parliaments.

I am joining the committee from Davos. The World Economic Forum is definitely focusing on a lot of issue such as security, geopolitics, and specifically on Russia's war against Ukraine. We are privileged to have the possibility of several of our Members of Parliament and members of the Government to be here to continue explaining what is happening and encouraging support for the country.

On behalf of the Ukrainian people who I represent as a parliamentarian, I wish to express our wholehearted gratitude to the Irish people and politicians for the warm welcome they have given to Ukrainians seeking refuge. I have heard that Ireland has increased its population by 1% by welcoming approximately 30,000 Ukrainians. We are grateful for that and we hope that by Ukraine winning, with the support of the free world, those Ukrainians will have a warm welcome back home and the possibility to return to their houses if they are preserved or to rebuild houses once this sad, terrible and most barbaric war is over.

As the committee members know, unfortunately, there is no safe place in Ukraine at this time. We are not only threatened but we are being shelled and pounded upon, killed, tortured, deported from the occupied territories and our children are being abducted. The atrocities that Russia has visited upon our land are absolutely inhumane and horrible to even imagine. I call this war a war between the world and anti-world, humanity and anti-humanity. I believe what is happening to be totally illogical. Free world nations and free people are standing up with Ukraine, but we need to sustain this support. It does not get any easier each day. That is something I feel here in Davos, unfortunately, in that there is a willingness by some politicians, states, and analysts to try to push Ukraine into making concessions or find compromises at the expense of Ukraine, as opposed to continuing to help us further and the need to understand and verify for themselves that the values being defended are real-world values that matter and are important.