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| This photo, captured from the homepage of North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency on Aug. 11, 2022, shows Kim Yo-jong, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's sister and vice department director of the ruling Workers' Party's Central Committee, making a speech to the effect that the coronavirus had been introduced into North Korea via South Korea during a national meeting on anti-epidemic measures held in Pyongyang the previous day. Yonhap |
Kim Yo-jong, the younger sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, accused Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Saturday of "gambling" with his country's destiny by talking about developing nuclear weapons or placing U.S. nukes in Ukraine.
Kim, vice department director of the Central Committee of the ruling Workers' Party, also accused the Ukrainian authorities of being "seized with the incurable megalomania that (they) can defeat Russia," and "incurring a nuclear disaster threatening their existence."
"Zelenskiyy'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," she said in an English-language statement carried by the North's Korean Central News Agency.
Kim referred to an appeal on the Ukrainian president's website, which she said called for deploying U.S. nuclear weapons in Ukraine or developing the country's own nuclear weapons.
She said it has been reported that if more than 25,000 people sign the appeal within 90 days, the president would examine the proposal and express his stance on it.
"This is a plausible veil of the public's expression of will, but it is not hard to guess that it is a product of the Zelenskiyy authorities' sinister political plot," she said, claiming that Ukrainian officials have openly revealed their nuclear ambitions on several occasions, including at the Munich Security Conference in February 2022.
Kim also warned Ukraine against relying on the U.S.
"If the Zelenskiyy 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. (Yonhap)
