Zelensky says 10,000 North Korean troops to join Russian forces, renews call to join NATO

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Thrusday said that 10,000 troops from North Korea are being prepared to join Russian forces fighting against his country. Zelensky called for Ukraine's urgent integration into NATO in a plea to alliance defence ministers in Brussels. The US and Germany are strongly opposed to any "short term" invitation for Ukraine to join the alliance.

Zelensky 'victory plan' dubbed 'wish list' by sceptical Ukrainian MPs© France 24

Rutte reiterated that Ukraine’s place is 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 already is “supporting the war effort” in other ways through its ties with Russia.

Zelenskyy 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.”

Zelenskyy said he needs 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.”

A draft copy of EU summit conclusions — a text that will likely be tweaked before publication at the end of Thursday’s meeting — reaffirms the bloc’s “unwavering commitment to providing continued political, financial, economic, humanitarian, military and diplomatic support to Ukraine and its people for as long as it takes and as intensely as needed. Russia must not prevail.”

'Slow' Western decision-making over Ukraine

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. Kyiv is surviving with Western help, but Ukraine says it is coming too slowly.

Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda criticized slow Western decision-making over Ukraine and said it “would be a great mistake to think that our hesitance is the best way to de-escalation.”

At their summit in Washington in July, the 32 NATO members declared Ukraine on an “irreversible” path to membership.

But for now, NATO is in a holding pattern. Its biggest and most powerful member, the United States, is facing a presidential election. European allies expect little movement on Ukraine until a new president takes office in January.

Beyond that, the United States and European heavyweight Germany remain deeply concerned about being dragged into a wider war with nuclear-armed Russia, and they lead a group of countries that oppose allowing Ukraine to join NATO until the conflict ends.