President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky has said that the conference in Lugano could be the first big step towards the victory of the democratic world.

"Russia's war against Ukraine is not only an attempt to seize our land and destroy state institutions, break our independence. This is a worldview confrontation. The anti-democratic and anti-European system built in Russia is trying to prove that it is supposedly stronger than all of us. and Ukraine, and Europe, and the democratic world," he said, speaking via video link at a conference on the restoration of Ukraine in Lugano.

"It is trying to prove that Europe is supposedly weak and unable to defend its values. This ideological motive can be traced in all the actions of the Russian state – both in relation to Ukraine and in relation to all of you. And all the crises created by Russia – inflationary, food, energy and migration, the contours of which already exist – are the most ideological, ideological test," Zelensky said.

"But still its most brutal manifestation is Russia's aggression against our country, against us, whom it wants to return to its zone of control in Europe," he said.