Building nuclear weapons in Ukraine: what BILD wrote, how the OP reacted and what statement Russia made
17 October 2024 19:34
The Ukrainian authorities are seriously considering the possibility of restoring nuclear weapons stockpiles. This is reported by BILD, "Komersant Ukrainian" reports.
According to BILD’s open data analyst Julian Röpke, who recently visited Ukraine, a few months ago a senior Ukrainian official told the media and other members of a narrow circle of politicians and officials that Ukraine would not accept a second Russian military offensive on Kyiv. In this case, Ukraine’s nuclear arsenal, which the country voluntarily abandoned in the 1990s, would be restored.
“We have the materials, we have the knowledge. If the order is given, it will take us only a few weeks to get the first bomb. The West should think less about Russia’s red lines and much more about our red lines,” BILD quoted a Ukrainian arms procurement official as saying on condition of anonymity.
The President’s Office responds to BILD’s story: what they say
Meanwhile, Dmytro Lytvyn, an adviser to the Presidential Office, called BILD’s loud statement about nuclear weapons in Ukraine “nonsense”.
According to Dmytro Lytvyn, it has long been possible to confuse the words of Bild military observer Julian Röpke with those of Russian propagandists. This is because both Röpke and Russian propaganda “throw the same nonsense into the information space”.
Andriy Kovalenko, head of the National Security and Defence Council’s Central Intelligence Department, also responded to the Bild article.
“Any fantasies of Western journalists about Ukrainian nuclear weapons are fiction,” he said.
What preceded it
on 17 October in Brussels, on the sidelines of the European Council meeting, Volodymyr Zelenskyy reminded that the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, signed by the Russian Federation, the United States and the United Kingdom, promised Ukraine the protection of its territorial integrity and sovereignty in exchange for the renunciation of nuclear weapons. But now this document is not working, so either NATO membership or nuclear weapons can ensure the country’s security.
“Which of these great nuclear powers has suffered? All of them? No, only one, Ukraine. Who gave up nuclear weapons? All of them? No. Only one. Who? Ukraine. Who is at war today? Ukraine. And that’s why we do it this way, and in a conversation with Trump, I told him: “We have this situation. Either Ukraine will have nuclear weapons, and this will protect us. Or we must have some kind of alliance. Apart from NATO, we do not know any effective alliances today. NATO countries are not at war today. NATO countries are not at war. People are all living in NATO countries. And thank God! That is why we choose NATO, not nuclear weapons. We choose NATO”. And I believe that Donald Trump heard me in this case. He said: “You have fair arguments,” Zelenskyy said.
Zelenskyy added that in response, Trump said that these were “valid arguments”.
To recap, Zelenskyy also raised the topic of restoring nuclear weapons at the Munich conference a few days before the Russian invasion.
How Zelenskyy’s statement on nuclear weapons is assessed in Ukraine and the world
Oleksiy Honcharenko, a member of the Ukrainian parliament from the European Solidarity party, writes that the presence of nuclear weapons is an opportunity for investment and development for Ukraine.
“Back in 2022, I started saying that we need to restore our nuclear status. Sanctions? What sanctions can we think about when they want to kill and destroy us all? We will think about it later. Unfortunately, the strategic situation is such that we cannot force Russia out of our territories. We simply do not have the resources. Therefore, we need to create parity with Russia in nuclear weapons,” Goncharenko wrote.
In turn, Polina Synovets, head of the Centre for Strategic Studies and Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, says that Ukraine does not have the capabilities to create a nuclear bomb.
“No one will allow us to do this. It is impossible to create a nuclear bomb without anyone noticing. It will not work out that we would “quietly” make a nuclear bomb, like North Korea. Either we shut ourselves off from the whole world and make a nuclear bomb, which I don’t believe in, or we do absolutely nothing,” Synovets said.
According to her, Ukraine has also never had a complete nuclear fuel cycle, which would allow it to create nuclear weapons.
“We are missing two elements – we do not enrich uranium and do not separate plutonium from fuel. This is a huge industrial scale, which requires huge money, and it is unlikely that the IMF will give Ukraine funds for this,” explained the head of the Centre for Strategic Studies and Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.
Russia has already reacted to the BILD article on Ukraine and nuclear weapons.
“This is complete nonsense, they have nothing to do with it. There are no competences, no materials, no equipment. Fairy tales that it is possible to create nuclear weapons from nuclear fuel waste are fairy tales for the uneducated… Real nuclear weapons are absolutely excluded,” said Andrey Kartapolov, chairman of the State Duma Defence Committee.
Kartapalov also reiterated the Russian propagandists’ thesis that Ukraine can only create a “dirty” nuclear bomb. But Russia is allegedly monitoring and controlling the situation. The State Duma deputy also took the opportunity to once again threaten Ukraine’s allies, including the United States.
“Assuming that they can be given it quietly, this is also impossible, because there is a certain methodology that allows us to immediately determine where the special munition was created. Then go ahead, America,” he said.
