N. Korea Accuses Ukraine of Having Nuclear Ambitions

North Korea’s Kim Yo Jong, leader Kim Jong-un's sister, accused Ukraine of calling for nuclear weapons, according to state media KCNA on Saturday.

She based her assertion on an online petition in that country that has garnered fewer than 1,000 signatures so far.

Kim said this kind of petition could be a political plot from the office of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, but he did not provide any evidence for confirmation.

After Russian President Vladimir Putin announced last week that Moscow plans to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, a public petition was submitted to the website of Ukraine's presidential office on Thursday, calling on Ukraine to host nuclear weapons on Ukrainian soil, or to be armed with nuclear weapons of its own.

By Saturday afternoon, the petition had only 611 signatures, far short of the 25,000 required for a response from Zelensky. Kyiv officials have not commented on the petition so far.

North Korea is forging closer ties with the Kremlin amid shared isolation by the West and backed Moscow's position after Russia's invasion of Ukraine last year, including its subsequent announcement of annexing parts of Ukraine that most United Nations members denounced as illegitimate.

The Asian country denied providing weapons to Moscow.