Zelensky Outlines Ukraine’s ‘Victory Plan’ to EU Leaders

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine made an urgent plea in Brussels, though it’s unclear to what extent the officials gathered there will go along with it.

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine told leaders of the European Union’s 27 member states in Brussels on Thursday that his country desperately needed their support for his plan to end the war, which he maintains could happen no later than next year, but which it is unclear how much Ukraine’s allies will embrace.

Mr. Zelensky made the impassioned plea on his latest trip abroad as he tries to attract sustained international support for Ukraine, two and a half years into the war, and as Ukrainian forces steadily lose ground to Russian troops. He had hoped to present the plan to European leaders in Germany earlier in the month, but that gathering was postponed when President Biden canceled his participation to deal with the effects of Hurricane Milton.

“You all know Russia’s psychology,” Mr. Zelensky told E.U. leaders on Thursday. “Russia will resort to diplomacy only when it sees that it cannot achieve anything by force.”

Mr. Zelensky later spoke at a news conference with Mark Rutte, the head of NATO, and made the case for Ukraine’s accession into the military alliance — a key point in his proposals.

The Ukrainian leader acknowledged in a news conference on Thursday that the United States was wary that his country’s accession to NATO had the potential to drag the United States directly into the war. But he said, “Invitation to NATO is not at all crossing any red lines, and crossing red lines with whom — with a murderer?”

Mr. Zelensky’s strategy, which he refers to as his “victory plan,” also calls for the West to lift restrictions on Kyiv’s use of Western-delivered missiles to strike ammunition depots and other military facilities inside Russia, and to share more satellite data that Ukraine can use to identify and strike Russian targets.

He laid out the plan for the first time in public on Wednesday in a speech to his country’s Parliament, an attempt to rally support at home around the idea that Kyiv can turn the tide on the battlefield. Ukraine is heading into what looks to be another difficult winter, with Russia stepping up its attacks on energy infrastructure.

In the past few months, Ukraine has also lost a series of cities, towns and villages in its eastern Donetsk region, currently the war’s main theater. Its forces are often overwhelmed on the battlefield by Russia’s superior numbers of troops and ammunition.

Mr. Zelensky has tried to convince partners that they have concrete interests in helping fend off Russian aggression and that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine poses a threat to the rest of Europe, too. Yet Western allies are wary that Ukrainian strikes inside Russia will escalate the war, and have declined to lift their restrictions on such strikes involving their weapons, Ukrainian officials have said.

And while allies, including the United States, have continued to pledge further military aid for Ukraine, leaders including Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany have faced pressure from the public to reduce their countries’ aid to Ukraine.

Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary said in a video posted on social media on Thursday that Mr. Zelensky’s plan for ending the war was “more than terrifying” because it involved sending more weapons to Ukraine, rather than focusing on a negotiated end to the war.

On Thursday, Mr. Zelensky said Ukraine had two options to deter further Russian aggression: becoming a nuclear power — a capability it lost in 1994 when it relinquished its Soviet-era nuclear arsenal to Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union — or joining NATO, which would guarantee protection from the military alliance’s members.

The Ukrainian leader said he conveyed that argument to former President Donald Trump in a recent conversation, noting that either Ukraine would need to join NATO or it would develop nuclear weapons.

“I believe that Donald Trump heard me,” Mr. Zelensky said. “He said, ‘You have a fair argument.’”

Mr. Zelensky later clarified during the news conference with Mr. Rutte that Ukraine was not preparing to build nuclear weapons.

Western allies have also been unwilling to allow Ukraine to join NATO while the war continues, since doing so would pull them further into Europe’s largest land conflict since 1945. Mr. Zelensky told his country’s Parliament on Wednesday that Ukraine would provide “partners with a clear justification of what our goals are, how we are achieving them and how much this will reduce Russia’s ability to continue the war.”

He added that Russia was getting not just shipments of artillery shells and ballistic missiles from North Korea, but also ground troops to fight alongside Russian troops. Ukrainian officials have made this claim several times in recent weeks, though they have not presented evidence that North Korean soldiers are on the ground in Ukraine.

Mr. Rutte and Western officials said they could not confirm that any North Koreans were fighting on Ukrainian soil.

The Ukrainian leader said that Europe’s continued support and unity were also a weapon against Russian aggression, adding, “It’s a weapon that means one thing for all of us: safety.”

Steven Erlanger contributed reporting from Berlin.

Our Coverage of the War in Ukraine

• U.S. Aid: President Biden announced $425 million in aid to Ukraine as he prepared to travel to Germany to celebrate the unified front of Western allies. The security package includes munitions, armored vehicles and other weapons.
• Russia Claws Back Land: Moscow’s forces have been recapturing some villages and land taken in a Ukrainian incursion into Russia. The advances could undermine Kyiv’s hopes of pushing Russia to the negotiating table.
• A Deadly Month: September was the bloodiest month of the war for Russian forces in Ukraine, U.S. officials said, bringing the number of Russia’s dead and wounded to more than 600,000 troops since the war began.

How We Verify Our Reporting

• Our team of visual journalists analyzes satellite images, photographs, videos and radio transmissions to independently confirm troop movements and other details.
• We monitor and authenticate reports on social media, corroborating these with eyewitness accounts and interviews. Read more about our reporting efforts.