President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky called the exchange of prisoners, the return of deported Ukrainians from Russia and the prevention of a food crisis the main humanitarian problems.

"From the humanitarian point of view, I would now single out two things. The first is the exchange of people. This is a political decision that depends on the support of many states. Today, several thousand people are in captivity after the blockade of Mariupol and Azovstal. They were taken out. And there were people who are in captivity today. These are brave people. They did a great job. Heroic and, I'm sure, historical. We must exchange them. And here it is necessary that all states join the UN, and Switzerland, and Israel who has experience...," Zelensky said, speaking via video link at the Ukrainian house in Davos.

According to the head of state, this is difficult, as countries are trying to talk with Russia, instead of pressing politically through any leverage.

"Today it is very important that the whole world does not persuade Russia. In no case. You can't flirt. You can't play with the Russian Federation. But political pressure through any levers, business, its closure in the Russian Federation, the oil embargo in order to knock out the possibility of an exchange, activate exchange of our people for the Russian military. We do not need the Russian military, we only need ours. We are ready to change even tomorrow," the president said.

He called the forthcoming food crisis in the world another humanitarian problem.

"There will be a shortage of food. Due to the blocking of all ports in our state. Today Russia, which controls the Azov coast, has blocked 22 million tonnes of grain, sunflower, etc.,. The entire political and business elite must take certain measures to unblock this grain so that it can be exported to the countries of Africa, Asia, the EU, so that people have something to eat. This is how the question will raise in many states: what to eat, because there is hunger. And we need help with this. Because if in the coming months we do not export this grain, if there are no political agreements with Russia through intermediaries, then there will be famine and disaster," he said.

Zelensky also called the forced deportation of people to the Russian Federation a humanitarian problem.

"Another question may be the most painful, but so far it has no practical plane. We still cannot find a tool for how to do this. More than 500,000 people were forcibly taken away and deported to the territory of the Russian Federation or temporarily occupied parts of Donbas. We appealed to International Committee of the Red Cross. Wherever there is access and we can look for these people, we are looking for them. This is a complicated story. We cannot just go online and find these people. Their passports and money were taken away from them," he said.

"I still cannot find a format for resolving this issue. I want to draw the attention of the international community to this. We want to return people home," Zelensky said.