Zelenskyy urges China to influence North Korea amid Ukraine conflict

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged China on Friday to influence North Korea, emphasizing Beijing's responsibility to ensure the war in Ukraine does not escalate.

"The Korean nation should not lose its people in the battles in Europe. And this can be influenced, particularly by Korea's neighbors, especially China.

"If China is sincere in its statements that the war should not escalate, it must exert appropriate pressure on Pyongyang," Zelenskyy said in an evening address on X, following a meeting of the Staff of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief to discuss developments on the frontline.

"The Donetsk areas are the most intense, as well as Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, and Kharkiv oblasts," he said.

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

"They have many losses. A great deal. And we can see that the Russian military and the North Korean enforcers have no interest in the survival of these Koreans at all. Everything is arranged in a way that makes it impossible for us to capture the Koreans as prisoners -- their own people are executing them, there are such cases."

Zelenskyy revealed that Ukrainian forces recently captured several wounded North Korean soldiers who could not be resuscitated. "This is one of the manifestations of the madness dictatorships are capable of," he said.