President Volodymyr Zelenskyy Urges China To Influence North Korea To Ensure Ukraine's War Doesn't Increase

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. (Source: President.gov.ua)

JAKARTA The presence of North Korean soldiers who were victims of the Russian war, made President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urge China to influence North Korea (North Korea), and stressed Beijing's responsibility to ensure that war in Ukraine does not escalate.

"The Korean nation must not lose its people in fighting in Europe. And this can be influenced, especially by neighboring countries, especially China," he said in a night address posted on X's social media account, Friday, December 27.

"If China sincerely in its statement that war should not escalate, they should put appropriate pressure on Pyongyang," Zelenskyy said after a meeting of the Supreme Commander's Staff to discuss developments on the front lines.

"The Donetsk area is the most intense, as are the Zaporizhia, Kherson, and Kharkiv regions," he said, quoted from Anadolu.

President Zelenskyy also highlighted the troubling developments in Russia's Oblast Kursk, where North Korean military personnel have reportedly joined the fighting with Russian forces.

"They suffered a lot of losses. Very much. And we can see that the Russian military and the North Korean rulers are not at all interested in the survival of these Koreans," he said.

"Everything is arranged in such a way that it is impossible for us to arrest Koreans as prisoners -- their own people to execute them, there are such cases."

Zelenskyy revealed that Ukrainian forces recently arrested several North Korean soldiers who were injured and could not be saved.

"This is a form of madness that can be done by dictatorships," he added.