Zelenskyy comments on whether Scholz's stance on Taurus missiles and Ukraine's NATO membership shifting

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said he hopes to persuade German Chancellor Olaf Scholz about the necessity of providing long-range weapons to Ukraine and supporting an invitation for Kyiv to join NATO.

Zelenskyy was asked  at a briefing in Brussels after attending a meeting of the European Council how to deal with the fact that Olaf Scholz is obviously not ready to act on two points from Ukraine's Victory Plan: the authorisation of long-range strikes into Russian territory and the expedited invitation for Ukraine to join NATO.

"We've had many conversations with Olaf and other partners who have these long-range capabilities," Zelenskyy began his response.

He stated that the deployment of Ukrainian domestically-produced long-range capabilities, coupled with the British-French Storm Shadow/SCALP missiles, resulted in the sinking of 23 Russian vessels in occupied Crimea, which he regarded as a considerable success.

"We've never used any long-range German assets. The reason is that they were not provided to us. So, we are not discussing their use with Olaf; our conversations are one step before that. We need these long-range assets... I respect his stance – it's his right to agree or not," Zelenskyy added.

The Ukrainian president was then asked about the German Chancellor's position on inviting Ukraine to join NATO.

"He's never said no, but he's never said yes either. We're going to work on it," Zelenskyy replied.

Zelenskyy revealed that he had discussed the need for Ukraine to join NATO with US presidential candidate Donald Trump, mentioning Kyiv's renunciation of nuclear weapons after the collapse of the USSR in exchange for "security guarantees".

The Ukrainian president stressed that if Ukraine's partners do not support the Victory Plan, it will benefit Russia and constitute an enormous mistake.