Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said his country had intelligence information that 10,000 troops from North Korea were being prepared to join Russian forces fighting against his country, warning that a third nation wading into the hostilities would turn the conflict into a “world war”.
Mr Zelensky did not go into any further details about the claim that came a day after US deputy secretary of state Kurt Campbell said in Seoul that Washington and its allies were alarmed by North Korea’s military support for Russia’s war in Ukraine but could not confirm Ukrainian claims that North Korean soldiers were sent to fight for Moscow.
“We know about 10,000 soldiers of North Korea that they are preparing to send (to) fight against us,” Mr Zelensky said, calling any North Korean involvement “the first step to a world war”.
The Ukrainian leader’s comments raised the stakes for his western allies as he met with European Union leaders and then Nato defence ministers to discuss his “victory plan” to end the country’s devastating war with Russia.
“If we start now and follow the victory plan, we can end this war no later than next year,” he told EU leaders.
He told reporters the plan aimed “to strengthen Ukraine” and pave the way for a diplomatic solution to end the conflict on Europe’s eastern flank.
“This plan doesn’t depend on Russian will, only on the will of our partners,” he said, before addressing leaders at an EU summit.
In a statement after their talks with Mr Zelensky, the EU leaders called for a “rapid stepping up of military support and acceleration in its delivery, in particular air defence systems, ammunition and missiles” to protect Ukraine’s population and energy infrastructure.
Mr Zelensky was later shuttling across Brussels to meet Nato defence ministers.
The EU is a key supporter of Ukraine, a candidate member of the 27-nation bloc, as it fights Russia’s invasion that began more than two-and-a-half years ago.
Mr Zelensky outlined the five-point plan to Ukraine’s parliament on Wednesday without disclosing confidential elements that have been presented in private to key allies, including the US.
Major points of the plan include an invitation for Ukraine to join Nato and permission to use western-supplied longer-range missiles to strike military targets deep inside Russia, steps that have been met with reluctance by Kyiv’s allies so far.
“If we get this sign that we will be in Nato, we will feel that we are not alone,” Mr Zelensky said.
The Institute for the Study of War in Washington said that Russian President Vladimir Putin is seeking to draw out the war and he believes “that Russian forces can outlast western support for Ukraine and collapse Ukrainian resistance by winning a war of attrition”.
Nato secretary-general Mark Rutte said on Thursday that Kyiv could rest “absolutely assured that 32 allies are united in making sure that collectively, we will do whatever is needed to make sure that Ukraine can prevail, that (Russian President Vladimir) Putin will not get his way.”
Mr Rutte reiterated that Ukraine’s place was among Nato’s ranks, but he would not say when it might join.
On Wednesday, he said Nato did not have confirmation of claims of thousands of North Korean troops preparing to join the war, but said the Asian nation is already “supporting the war effort” in other ways through its ties with Russia.
Mr Zelensky insists that a membership invitation is central to his “victory plan” and would provide his country with the ultimate security guarantee to protect it from Russia.
“Ukraine will be a member of Nato in the future,” Mr Rutte said.
“The question is exactly about the ‘when’. I cannot answer that now.”
But Mr Rutte said Mr Putin must understand that “we are in this, if necessary, for the long haul. And obviously we want to be in a place where Zelensky and Ukraine, from a position of strength, is able to start talks with Russia”.
Mr Zelensky told EU leaders that his troops must keep battling Russian forces in Ukraine “while also bringing the war back into Russia so that Russians can feel what war is like and begin to hate Putin for it”.
Mr Zelensky said he needed to “move some partners forward” on the issue.
“And I think only with the unity in EU we can move and can move not only EU leaders, we can move other leaders,” he said.
Thursday’s talks in Brussels come as Ukrainian troops are struggling to hold off better-equipped Russian forces, especially in the eastern Donetsk region where they are gradually being pushed back.
Meanwhile, Russia on Friday returned to Ukraine the bodies of 501 soldiers, Ukrainian authorities said, in what appeared to be the biggest repatriation of war dead since Russia’s invasion.
Most of the soldiers were killed in action in the eastern Donetsk region of Ukraine, mostly around the city of Avdiivka that Russian forces captured in February after a long and gruelling battle, Ukraine’s Co-ordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War said in a statement.
Law enforcement agencies and forensic experts will identify the victims, who will then be handed to family members for burial, it said.
