Efforts led by the U.S. and other Western countries to form new groups to monitor sanctions on North Korea will fail, the country's U.N. envoy said on Sunday, according to state media KCNA.

Ambassador Kim Song made the comment in response to a joint statement the U.S. and its allies issued this week calling to continue the work of a U.N. panel of experts monitoring longstanding sanctions against Pyongyang for its nuclear weapons and missile programs.

Earlier this year, Russia vetoed the annual renewal of the panel amid U.S.-led accusations that North Korea has transferred weapons to Russia for use in its war in Ukraine.

"The hostile forces may set up the second and third expert panels in the future but they are all bound to meet self-destruction with the passage of time," KCNA quotes Kim as saying in a statement.

Last month, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield visited the Demilitarized Zone, a heavily fortified border between the two Koreas, which remain technically at war and urged Russia and China to stop rewarding North Korea for its bad behaviour.

Her trip came after Russia rejected the annual renewal of the multinational panel of experts that has over the past 15 years monitored the implementation of U.N. sanctions aimed at curbing North Korea's nuclear and missile programs.

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A NATO country says it could join Ukraine's war with Russia if 2 conditions are met

• French President Emmanuel Macron discussed the Ukraine war with The Economist.

• He said France could send troops if requested by Ukraine in response to a Russian breakthrough.

• His remarks about French soldiers defending Ukraine are among the most hawkish by a Western leader.

French President Emmanuel Macron reaffirmed that he'd consider sending French troops to Ukraine and spelled out the conditions in which that could take place.

Speaking to The Economist, Macron described the urgent threat that Russian President Vladimir Putin posed to Europe in the wake of the 2022 Ukraine invasion.

"I'm not ruling anything out, because we are facing someone who is not ruling anything out," Macron said when asked about his earlier comments that NATO troops could be deployed to help defend Ukraine.

"We have undoubtedly been too hesitant by defining the limits of our action to someone who no longer has any and who is the aggressor," he continued.

He said he'd consider sending French troops to Ukraine "if the Russians were to break through the front lines, if there were a Ukrainian request, which is not the case today."

He added that if Russia defeated Ukraine, it would then probably seek to attack another European country.

In recent months, political and military leaders have been issuing increasingly stark warnings about the possible consequences of a Russian victory in Ukraine.

Macron's remarks about sending French troops to defend Ukraine are among the most hawkish by a Western leader.

Ukraine has struggled to prevent Russia from breaking through its defensive lines amid a US aid block. And though the $61 billion aid bill was recently passed, Ukraine is still fighting to hold back intensifying Russian attacks.

While NATO countries have sent money and weapons to help Ukraine, they've avoided a direct confrontation amid fears it could escalate the conflict with a nuclear-armed Russia.

Under Article 5 of NATO's founding treaty, members are pledged to defend each other if attacked.

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In response to Macron's earlier remarks, the Kremlin's spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said deploying NATO troops to Ukraine would lead to war between Russia and the alliance.

"We would need to talk not about the probability, but about the inevitability," Peskov said, according to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

Analysts recently discussed with Business Insider the likelihood of Russia attacking NATO, with the Russian-military expert Ruth Deyermond saying Putin's regime was too weak militarily to risk a direct confrontation with NATO.

In the interview with The Economist, Macron said he was determined to prevent a Russian victory.

"We mustn't rule anything out," he said, "because our objective is that Russia must never be able to win in Ukraine."