The decision to open a regional office of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in Kyiv is recognition of Ukraine's importance for global cooperation and development, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said.

Speaking via video link at the organization's conference on Thursday, he recalled the upcoming post-war reconstruction of Ukraine based on the new "Marshall Plan."

"The fundamental decision to open a regional office of the organization in Kyiv, our capital, is an important practical step in this direction, as well as recognition of the importance of our country, our region for global cooperation and development," he said, expressing hope for an early meeting with the OECD General Secretary in Kyiv.

He also called the OECD decision to suspend the process of Russia's entry into the organization correct. "This should be an example for other international organizations, we must continue to use all instruments of pressure on Russia, both at the level of international organizations and at the level of countries, in order to stop its aggressive policy. The world must remove everything that hinders cooperation and development, and Russian aggression as the first and main obstacle, the first and key threat," Zelensky said.

He stressed the threat of an ecological catastrophe associated with the fighting in Donbas. "Fighting in such a region, and even more so with the use of weapons that Russia is now using, is the threat of pollution of a vast territory, the spread of pollution to underground waterways and rivers, and hence the Black Sea. Just imagine the level of losses, the level of losses for Europe and the world," the President said.

The possible use of weapons of mass destruction by Russia, Zelensky said, would endanger "the sources of drinking water in our region" and lead to the threat of radiation or chemical contamination in the Black Sea and parts of the Mediterranean.

Zelensky also called for Russia's exclusion from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, stressing that its actions to block Ukrainian ports threaten starvation "between 400 million and 1 billion people."

He did not agree with the characterization of the current situation as a geopolitical crisis. "They talk about geopolitics only when they don't want to admit that they are giving up their values. And I am grateful to you for adhering to your principles, for being ready to uphold these values, because sustainable development and sustainable progress are possible on the basis of these values," the President said.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development is an international economic organization of developed countries that recognize the principles of representative democracy and a free market economy.