Volodymyr Zelensky does not want let the European Union forget about Ukraine and this was made known this Thursday at the European Council summitwhich he attended as a guest. The president has been very clear, with little news regarding his demands in recent months: he has asked leaders for more weapons and military support. “Only with unity in the EU can we achieve progresswe can mobilize not only the leaders of the Union but other leaders,” he noted, before adding that lasting peace does not depend only on kyiv: “It is important that this not only depends on the will of Russia but on the will of our partners and this allows the plan to be real,” he defended, calling, for now, for “consistent” support from his Western allies.
Thus, Zelensky’s “victory plan” consists of five points, which he put on the table of the 27. The first involves keeping the alliance with NATO strong, which includes a formal invitation for the country to be part of the organization. The second has to do with military support “to pressure Russia” on the ground.while the third, says the Ukrainian president, consists directly of “placing a package of deterrence measures on Ukrainian territory to force Russia to participate in real peace negotiations or allow the destruction of its military objectives.” The fourth and fifth point They are the “protection” of Ukraine’s resources, which Moscow “wants to take over” and, after the war, “the reconstruction” of the country, for which economic aid will be key.
The Ukrainian president understands that there is a good reception from the allies, but he asks for more clarity, even if implicitly, because only with that support, he says, can his people “defeat” Russia. Meanwhile, although the conflict is broadly frozen, Zelensky sees elements of escalation. In this sense, he warned at a press conference that Ukrainian Intelligence takes for granted that there are “North Korean soldiers” on the ground, at least in areas of Ukraine annexed by Moscow. This is, for kyiv, “a first step towards the third world war.”
The priority now for Zelensky, however, is that military support be intensified. “Sending missiles is always a signal to the Russians to stop the war and that we can confront them and stop the war if they don’t,” he assured, and had a reference for the case of Germany. “We have not used German long-range missiles because they have not given them to us,” the Ukrainian president summarized before the press, just after presenting his road map to the leaders of the 27. He does recognize “positive signals” so that his Army can use Western weapons in responding to Moscow.
On the other hand, the Ukrainian president assumes – although he does not have an exact figure – that there are North Korean troops helping the Kremlin. “This is something urgent, I have spoken about it with the United States and the leaders of the EU. We know that Iran sends missiles and drones but not troops, here we see one more step and it is a step towards a world war“He reiterated. This, of course, he actually sees as a sign of Russia’s weakness: “Putin is worried about having to make new mobilizations, which is why he tries to involve other actors in the war.”
