Davos meeting gabfest to wrap up with German leader

DAVOS, Switzerland (AP) — After days of discussions about Russia's war in Ukraine, a global food crisis, climate change and other hot-button issues, the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting was set to conclude Thursday with one of the highest-profile guests to journey to Davos: German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

The yearly gathering of elites that was suspended twice over the COVID-19 pandemic has been overshadowed by the war in Ukraine, dousing moods among policymakers but not stopping advocacy groups and business leaders from trying to improve fortunes and — as forum organizers hope — the state of the world.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba and an array of lawmakers, local officials and business leaders captured the spotlight in-person and virtually to drum up support for their country’s grueling and uncertain campaign to oust Russian invaders who bombed, blasted and barraged their way to seize control of a widening arc of eastern Ukraine since Feb. 24.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s campaign has drawn international scorn and unsettled his allies, and as a result, Russian envoys from business and government who have been staples at Davos since the end of the Soviet Union weren’t invited this year.

Attention was turning to Scholz’s near-finale address to cap scores of panel discussions, speeches, coffee chats and other meetings in public and private this week – mostly to see if he might try to answer two of Ukraine’s key appeals: for stronger sanctions against Russia and better weapons to help their forces fight.

Kuleba voiced little hope that the war could come to a negotiated end, or even a pause, anytime soon.

“The moment Russia will agree to a cease-fire will be the moment it will be one step away from losing the war,” he...