Comment of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine on the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum

Armed invasion of the Russian Federation of Ukraine has resulted not only in tens of thousands of victims and the occupation of the part of the territory of Ukraine, but has caused the wave of the global inflation, growing poverty and food shortages around the world.  

• In the Russian Federation “dismembered” Ukraine and showed a map of “districts”

The attempts of the Russian Federation to show that it still has the support from the side of the foreign business community by mean of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum have failed. There is no such support, as evidenced according to the lists of both participants and sponsors of the event.

It’s not surprising that the Russian side has announced that Vladimir Putin would not conduct a traditional meeting with the foreign investors and representatives of the international media in the framework of the forum this year. After all, foreign companies are leaving en masse the Russian market, not having belief in its prospects. It is symptomatic that Kremlin’s propagandists will moderate the plenary sessions of the forum. Thus, it can be stated that the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum has become another Russian simulacrum, an instrument of the Russian propaganda that has nothing to do with the modern economy and trade.

We are deeply frustrated by the activity of those individual representatives of the foreign business who continue business contacts with Russia. We consider cooperation with the aggressor state and the taxes payment to the Russian budget as the support of the ongoing war of Russia against Ukraine and earning on the blood of Ukrainians.

We call on foreign business to leave the Russian market and finally break ties with Russia and transfer its activities to Ukraine. Russia's economy is doomed to collapse, in particular due to high levels of corruption, an inefficient state apparatus, public spending and the operation of state-owned company-monopolies. Private initiative and real economic freedom cannot develop in the conditions of totalitarianism and isolationism that prevail in the territory of the Russian Federation.