While entertaining some of the world’s wealthiest and most influential people last week at his annual dinner on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum meeting, billionaire philanthropist George Soros issued a dire warning about Europe’s future in light of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“Even when the fighting stops, as it eventually must, the situation will never revert to what it was before. The invasion may have been the beginning of the Third World War, and our civilization may not survive it,” Soros said on May 24, exactly three months since Russian forces entered the country.

The war is a defining moment for Soros, a 91-year-old Hungarian American who has devoted many years of his life to pro-democracy work as the founder of the Open Society Foundations, a network of foundations and offices working in more than 120 countries. He views the conflict as an ultimate test of whether democracy can prevail — not just in Ukraine but worldwide.