Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his country needed security guarantees in the absence of NATO membership, warning Russian leader Vladimir Putin could be preparing to go to war against the alliance next year. "The same way what it was in 2022 so they can go forward to Ukraine, or they will go to Poland or to Baltic. And I think this is his idea, and I think that all I've got from intelligence and they said, I think, to my mind, that he's preparing the war against NATO countries next year," Zelenskyy said in Munich on Friday, where he is attending the Munich Security Conference. "God bless we will stop this crazy guy and we'll not have war, any war in the world, in Europe. But you will not stop him just to say that 'yes, he said that he will stop.' It's not enough," Zelenskyy added. "And that's why how to stop it? Security guarantees for us. And I said yes, we want NATO, but I don't want, you know, to leave Ukrainians without security guarantees, if they will not give us NATO today," he stressed. The future of Ukraine is the top item on the agenda at the Munich Security Conference following a phone call between U.S. President Donald Trump and Putin this week. Zelensky said his uncompromising position remained that Ukraine was right and Russia was not after it invaded and occupied his country, and it was important that the United States did not take a neutral position on the matter. "I think that the United States is not in the middle otherwise, you know, in the middle, between what?Between... I don't know. I think that United States is in the top, yes, and they can stop any evil and they in this case they have to be on this side of us because they attacked us and occupied us," the Ukrainian President argued. US Vice President JD Vance is expected to meet Zelenskyy later Friday for talks that many observers, particularly in Europe, hope will shed at least some light on Trump’s ideas for a negotiated settlement to the war.