Ukrainian President Zelensky delivers a speech at the 78th United Nations General Assembly at the United Nations Headquarters in New York on September 19, 2023.
Timothy A. Clary | AFP | Getty Images
President Volodymyr Zelensky has called on Ukraine’s allies to stop “waiting and watching” and take action to address their presence in Russia before North Korean forces begin fighting Ukraine.
Zelensky said in a video posted on Telegram that North Korea has made progress in military capabilities, missile deployment and weapons production, “and now unfortunately they will learn modern warfare.”
“The first thousands of soldiers from North Korea are already approaching the Ukrainian border. Ukrainians will be forced to defend them,” he said. “The world will be watching again.”
Zelensky said Ukraine had identified every location in Russia where North Korean soldiers were stationed. But he said Kiev’s Western allies did not provide the long-range weapons needed to fight them.
“But American watches, British watches, German watches… don’t have this necessary remote capability,” he said.
“Everyone in the world who truly wants Russia’s war in Ukraine not to expand… must not just sit on the sidelines. They must take action. Words about not allowing the war to escalate and expand must be matched by actions.”
The flowing three-minute video intersperses his comments with images of North Korean soldiers and missile launches, as well as images of the war and the United Nations.
The footage was released after an interview with South Korea’s KBS television station on Thursday in which Zelensky slammed what he said were allies’ “zero” response to Russia’s deployment of North Korean troops.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Thursday that there were 10,000 North Korean troops in Russia, including as many as 8,000 in the southern region of Kursk where Ukrainian forces launched an invasion in August.
North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui told his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov on Friday that the country would support Russia until it achieves victory in the war in Ukraine.
