World War III has already begun, Ukraine’s former president has declared, citing North Korean troops fighting alongside Russian forces and a surge of Iranian-made weapons fuelling the assault on his nation.

In an interview with Times of Malta, former Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko said that while Ukraine’s partners feared the war on his country could escalate into a third world war, they should “wake up; World War III is already happening”.

“We have North Korean soldiers on Ukrainian territory. We have drones from Iran attacking right in front of my house. We have North Korean missiles attacking energy infrastructure in Kyiv [and] artillery shells delivered to Russia from North Korea and Iran,” he said.

Warning that North Korean soldiers were being sent to Ukraine to obtain combat experience, the former president said those troops would be used in Southeast Asia to “blackmail the world”.

North Korea has alarmed the international community with provocative acts in recent years, firing its longest-range intercontinental ballistic missile in October and sparking fears of a renewed conflict with neighbouring South Korea.

Stressing that, along with Iran, the pariah state was supplying “more artillery shells, missiles and drones than all NATO member states together supply to Ukraine”, Poroshenko warned this was the “main danger” facing his country and called for action.

NATO is a military alliance of 32 countries originally founded to counter the threat of the Soviet Union during the Cold War, a period of heightened tensions between the West and the Soviets.

“We need an effective mechanism to make sanctions effective and stop Iran and North Korea from supplying these [weapons]. With that, victory would be significantly closer, [and] Russia would be significantly weaker.”

'We are not afraid'

Poroshenko was speaking while in Malta to address the European People’s Party (EPP) general assembly at the PN headquarters, the European group’s national party in Malta.

He was speaking just hours after Russia fired a new experimental hypersonic missile – thought to be nuclear-capable – at Ukraine in a dramatic intensifying of the crisis.

Poroshenko stressed the act was intended as a “message for the West”.

The former president said that while his country was not afraid of Vladimir Putin, the Russian president “wants to make our partners in the West afraid”, something he said Putin “needs very much” to achieve his aims.

“On the contrary,the absence of fear gives us an opportunity to win,” said Poroshenko, who served as the fifth president of Ukraine from 2014 to 2019.

Poroshenko said his country is not afraid of Russian president Vladimir Putin.

“Putin isn’t [just] fighting Ukraine, he is fighting against Poland, against the Baltic States [and] he thinks he can fight against Germany, because he thinks Dresden, where he served as a KGB officer, is also a zone of Russian interest.

“And Putin fights against Malta, because Malta is a free and democratic state. That’s why we are together.”

And Putin fights against Malta, because Malta is a free and democratic state. That’s why we are together- Petro Poroshenko

Victory

Emphasising that while a victory for Ukraine did not mean killing Putin or “putting Ukrainian flags on the Kremlin”, Poroshenko said his country’s aim was to prevent Russia from being able to continue the war and that Putin’s use of an ICBM showed he was rattled.

“Why did Putin have such a nervous reaction? Because... with one Storm Shadow missile, we destroyed two big warehouses of Russian missiles,” he said, referencing Ukraine’s first use of the British-made weapon to strike targets inside Russia.

But doubts over his country’s ability to claim victory against its foe, a nuclear superpower with vast natural resources, have continued to swirl internationally and even at home.

Last month, the BBC reported that Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky had acknowledged to his country’s parliament that victory was an “uncomfortable word and not easy to achieve”, and recently said Kyiv wanted to end the war next year through “diplomatic means”.

Ukraine will never be a colony of Russia according to the former Ukrainian president.

Pressed on whether a victory against Russia was realistic and if his country could accept ceding territory, Poroshenko stressed there would be “no compromise” on the matter and Ukraine would never recognise or accept Putin’s capture of Ukrainian territory.

Listing five conditions for peace, the former president said there would be no compromise on Ukrainian sovereignty and independence, emphasising Ukraine “will never be a colony of Russia” and that it instead wanted to join both the EU and NATO.

Support for Ukraine

Asked if the EU was doing enough to support Ukraine, while expressing his “appreciation for our partners – the EU, USA, UK, Japan, Australia [and] all the democratic world, including Malta”, Poroshenko questioned whether such support was sufficient.

“Is it enough? In terms of weapons, it’s never enough.”

While the US has been a staunch ally of Ukraine since the start of the conflict, there are fears military support could grind to a halt with the impending return of Donald Trump, who has repeatedly claimed he could end the war within 24 hours.

Quizzed on those fears, Poroshenko urged observers to “please not accept these [Trump’s] words as things that will definitely happen within the next weeks”, pointing to military aid given to his country during Trump’s first presidency while Poroshenko served as Ukrainian president. 

However, he stressed a victory within 24 hours was possible by instead “inviting Ukraine into NATO”, warning that without such a move, “the war will not be stopped in 24 years”.

Arguing that Ukraine and NATO leaders should learn from the example set during the Cold War, when West Germany was granted NATO membership to the vehement protests of the Soviet Union which occupied the country’s east, Poroshenko said “we should learn from that experience and repeat it once again now”.

“The only thing Trump needs to do is invite Ukraine to join NATO. It’s a very important precondition to stop the war… to freeze all military action. And a powerful signal to Putin that he cannot blackmail the free democratic world.”