Kyiv’s Mayor Vitali Klitschko said Ukraine may need to temporarily cede land as part of a peace deal with Russia, according to reports.
“One of the scenarios is… to give up territory. It’s not fair. But for the peace, temporary peace, maybe it can be a solution, temporary,” Klitschko was quoted by the BBC as saying in an interview.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy might be forced to accept a “painful solution” to achieve peace, Klitschko said, although the Ukrainian people would “never accept occupation” by Russia.
Former heavyweight boxing champion Klitschko, a political rival of Zelenskyy, accused the president’s entourage earlier this year of political intrigue.
Russia pounded the capital city Kyiv with missiles and drones on Thursday night, killing at least 12 people, in the biggest attack on the Ukrainian capital this year.
Zelenskyy said on Thursday the Russian missile that struck a residential building in Kyiv overnight and killed 12 people was supplied by North Korea, confirming an earlier report.
A North Korean KN-23 (KN-23A) missile hit a residential block in the Sviatoshynskyi district west of Kyiv’s centre during a major aerial attack by Russia, a Ukrainian military said.
“According to preliminary information, the Russians used a ballistic missile manufactured in North Korea. Our special services are verifying all the details,” Zelenskyy said on X, without providing further details.
Russia made no comment on Zelenskyy’s remarks. Russia and North Korea have denied weapons transfers that would violate U.N. embargoes.
Russia’s military cooperation with North Korea grew rapidly as Moscow became internationally isolated after invading Ukraine in February 2022.
Ukraine says North Korea has supplied Russia with vast amounts of artillery shells as well as rocket systems, thousands of troops and ballistic missiles, which Moscow began using for strikes against Ukraine at the end of 2023.
By the start of 2025, Pyongyang had supplied Russia with 148 KN-23 and KN-24 ballistic missiles, Ukraine’s military spy agency says.
KN-23 (KN-23A) missiles are armed with warheads of up to one tonne, which is more powerful than the Russian equivalent missiles, the Ukrainian source said.
In the initial readout after the Russian attack, Kyiv said seven ballistic missiles were used in total, identifying them broadly as Iskander-M/KN-23.
North Korea’s involvement in Ukraine has alarmed not only European capitals but also South Korea and its allies in Asia, who fear that lessons learned from war could be unleashed on them one day.
Team BharatShakti
(With inputs from Reuters)
