At the EU summit currently taking place in Brussels, Zelensky told member states that Ukraine wants the war to end by the end of the year and urged them to help Kiev prepare for the upcoming winter by providing anti-aircraft missiles and fuel, the BBC quoted him as saying.
Every democratic country in Europe deserves EU membership, Zelensky said, adding: "Ukraine deserves it because it has paid more than any other country for its right to be free, independent and... European."
However, he admitted that not all countries support Kiev's accelerated accession to the EU. Hungary has asked for similar text to be removed from the European Council statement published after the summit.
"The most important step - I know that not everyone likes this - could be an accelerated path for Ukraine's accession to the EU," Zelensky said.
Hungarian Prime Minister Péter Magyar announced that he had successfully removed the mention of accelerating Ukraine's accession process from his statement. "It was not easy," he wrote on social media.