North Korea Says Ukraine ‘Gambling’ With People’s Destiny Over Nuclear Ambitions

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North Korea has accused Ukraine’s leader of “gambling” with the lives of his people by pursuing nuclear weapons or placing U.S. nuclear weapons in the war-hit country, North Korea’s official mouthpiece said on Sunday.

Kim Yo Jong, the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, referred to a petition posted on the Ukrainian president’s website that calls for Ukraine to develop its nuclear arsenal or host U.S. nuclear weapons on its territory.

The petition, posted on the website on March 30, had gathered 611 signatures as of Saturday. It requires at least 25,000 to elicit a response from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

In a statement carried by the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), Kim said the petition was “a product of the Zelenskyy authorities’ sinister political plot” but did not provide any supporting evidence.

“The Ukrainian authorities, seized with the incurable megalomania that can defeat Russia, are incurring a nuclear disaster threatening their existence without any elementary consciousness of foresight and any ability to cope with its ensuing consequences,” she said.

“Zelenskyy’s talk about the introduction of U.S. nuclear weapons and the independent development of nuclear weapons is a manifestation of his very dangerous political ambition to prolong his remaining days at any cost by gambling with the destiny of his country and people,” Kim added.

Kim said that Ukraine will never be a rival to Russia, and that Zelenskyy would be mistaken to believe that relying on the United States’ nuclear umbrella would enable his troops to defeat the Russians.

“If the Zelenskyy authorities calculated that they can avoid the powerful fire of Russia only when they go under the U.S. nuclear umbrella, which had already been perforated, they are going to the wrong path, the last path,” she said.

The petition was submitted to Zelenskyy’s website after Russian President Vladimir Putin revealed plans to place tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, which borders Russia, Poland, Ukraine, Latvia, and Lithuania.

Putin said that his military would have control of any weapons that are stationed in Belarus, which was used in part by Russian forces to help stage last year’s invasion of Ukraine.

The United States has assessed that Russia is sending a delegation to North Korea to offer food in exchange for weaponry, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said on Friday.

“As part of this proposed deal, Russia would receive over two dozen kinds of weapons and munitions from Pyongyang,” Kirby told reporters.

Kirby previously accused North Korea of supplying weapons to Russian private military contractor Wagner Group, pointing to images allegedly showing Russian railcars traveling to North Korea in November 2022. Both North Korea and Wagner have denied this.

The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control recently sanctioned a Slovakian national named Ashot Mkrtychev for allegedly attempting to facilitate arms deals between Russia and North Korea.

“Russia has lost over 9,000 pieces of heavy military equipment since the start of the war, and thanks in part to multilateral sanctions and export controls, Putin has become increasingly desperate to replace them,” U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in a statement.

“Schemes like the arms deal pursued by this individual show that Putin is turning to suppliers of last resort like Iran and the DPRK,” she said, referring to North Korea’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

North Korea fired more than 70 missiles last year, one of which involved the intercontinental ballistic missile Hwasong-17, which experts dubbed a “monster missile” capable of striking anywhere in the United States.

China and Russia had vetoed a resolution that would have tightened sanctions on North Korea for its missile launches, which have been banned under U.N. Security Council resolutions since 2006.

Jack Phillips contributed to this report.