Volodymyr Zelenskyy has told Sky News that Vladimir Putin could attack a NATO country within five years to test the alliance.
The Ukrainian president made the comments in an interview with chief presenter Mark Austin.
But asked by Austin if Mr Putin could attack within months, Mr Zelenskyy said he did not “believe [Putin] is ready”.
Mr Zelenskyy also said plans for NATO members to increase defence spending to 5% of GDP by 2035 are “very slow”.
“In my view, this is slow because we believe that starting from 2030, [Vladimir] Putin can have significantly greater capabilities.
“Today, Ukraine is holding him up, he has no time to drill the army.”
Russia’s soldiers are “all getting annihilated and wiped out at the battlefield”, he continued.
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“In any case, [Putin] needs a pause, he needs sanctions to be lifted, he needs a drilled army.
“And 10 years is a very long time. He will have a new army ready [by then].”
The UK and its NATO allies have agreed to increase spending on defence and related areas to 5% of GDP by 2035, two sources told Sky News.
Chief presenter
He’s an embattled wartime leader struggling to make himself heard. For Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy the war in Iran could not have come at a worse time.
Suddenly the world’s attention is on a different conflict and most crucially so is the attention of the most powerful man in the world, Donald Trump.
But this is a big 24 hours for Zelenskyy, a meeting with Sir Keir Starmer in Downing Street followed by the NATO summit in The Hague.
When I sat down with President Zelenskyy in the last few hours he had two main issues on his mind.
Firstly, the proposed spending pledge by NATO countries of 5% of GDP by 2035 – that he said was too slow and warned that Putin would be ready with a new army within five years. He said the Russian leader would likely attack a NATO country within a few years to test Article 5.
Then he was on to sanctions, which he told me, were not working. Countries, including the UK, were allowing dual use components used in the production of drones and missiles to still get into Russian hands and must be blocked.
He also still insisted there would be no negotiations without a ceasefire. This war is not going well for Ukraine right now.
Three-and-a-half years into it, the fighting goes on and Zelenskyy appeared to be a defiant president determined to see it through.
The target, up from the current goal of 2% of GDP, will be formally signed off when the heads of state and government meet in The Hague on Tuesday and Wednesday.
The spending goal is broken down into 3.5% of GDP to be spent on pure defence and 1.5% of GDP on related areas, such as infrastructure and cyber security.
Defence spending of 5% is the kind of level invested by NATO allies during the Cold War.
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Zelenskyy met Sir Keir Starmer at Downing Street and Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle at parliament on Monday, before travelling to Windsor Castle for a meeting with the King.
The Ukrainian president’s visit to the UK comes ahead of the two-day summit of NATO leaders in The Hague, where discussions about increased defence spending are top of the agenda.
You can watch the full interview on Sky News from 6am tomorrow
