The ceasefire with Putin is unattainable because he cannot be trusted, Mr. Soros stated.

Billionaire financier George Soros said on Tuesday that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine may have been the beginning of World War Three so the best way to preserve free civilisation was for the West to defeat President Vladimir Putin’s forces.

Other issues that concern all of humanity -- fighting pandemics and climate change, avoiding nuclear war, maintaining global institutions - have had to take a back seat to that struggle, Mr. Soros, 91, said Tuesday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. That’s why I say our civilization may not survive, he added.

The best and perhaps only way to preserve our civilization is to defeat Putin as soon as possible. That’s the bottom line, he emphasised.

Mr. Soros, a legendary hedge fund manager who earned fame by betting against the pound in 1992, cast the Ukraine war as part of a broader struggle between open societies and closed societies such as China and Russia which were in the ascent.

Mr. Soros said that Putin, who says the “special operation” in Ukraine is going to plan and will achieve all the Kremlin’s aims, now believed the invasion was a mistake and was preparing to negotiate a ceasefire.

He said the European Union had to understand that Putin could turn off Russian natural gas, which currently accounts for about 40 per cent of Europe’s needs, “while it really hurts”.