“Either nuclear weapons or alliance” – Zelensky raises the specter of Ukraine becoming a nuclear state again

Either join NATO or build nuclear weapons, President Volodymyr Zelensky He said He told Donald Trump.

This statement marks the first occasion after the large-scale invasion of 2022 that Zelensky has directly referred to Ukraine’s potential return to being a nuclear state.

Speaking in Brussels To the European Council Zelensky said on Thursday that he told the US Republican presidential candidate that Ukraine’s response to the Russian invasion is to either restore its nuclear capabilities or join NATO, and that Ukraine is choosing the latter option.

It is unclear when the conversation between Zelensky and Trump took place.

Zelensky also brought up the Budapest Memorandum in his speech, a security agreement concluded in the 1990s that saw Kiev give up its nuclear arsenal after the breakup of the Soviet Union in exchange for security guarantees from the US, UK and Russia that were never released when Moscow was invaded.

“Which nuclear states suffered? Nobody but Ukraine… who gave up their nuclear weapons? All of them? No, only Ukraine… who is fighting today? Ukraine,” Zelensky told the European Council.

He then referred to his alleged conversation with Trump.

“As such – and in a conversation with Donald Trump I said – this is our situation,” Zelensky added.

“What is our way out? Either Ukraine will have nuclear weapons, which will be a means of defense for us, or we will need some kind of alliance, in addition to NATO. But today we do not know of any other alliance. NATO countries today are not at war. NATO countries do not fight. In NATO countries people are still alive, thank God. That is why we chose NATO, not nuclear weapons.

“And Donald Trump heard me. “He said you have a fair argument,” Zelensky said.

Until December 5, 1994, Ukraine was officially the third largest nuclear power in the world.

Given Ukraine’s strategic location during the Cold War, it inherited a huge stockpile of nuclear weapons when the Soviet Union dissolved, along with Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan.

Its nuclear arsenal included approximately 1,700 strategic nuclear warheads, as well as a fleet of bombers and intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) that rivaled most other nuclear-capable states at the time.

However, it should be noted that although Ukraine possessed the weapons and expertise to develop and maintain them – although a lack of resources would likely have prevented it from doing so – Moscow retained control of these weapons.

While A You mentioned a think tank Since Ukraine does not have a “uranium enrichment plant or facilities to produce fuel for nuclear power plants,” and as “Ukrainian uranium concentrate was shipped to Russia for enrichment and fuel manufacturing” prior to the 2022 invasion, it is likely that the country has retained the knowledge base needed to restart. And its nuclear programs if it so desires.