Policy

Restoration of Ukraine’s nuclear potential: Zelensky makes a statement

At a joint briefing with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte in Brussels, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy denied that Ukraine is preparing to build nuclear weapons and called for no misinterpretation of his words and no hidden meanings, "Komersant Ukrainian" reports

“We have never said that we are preparing to create nuclear weapons,” Zelenskyy said.

The head of state explained what he meant when he spoke about the Budapest Memorandum earlier. According to him, Ukraine gave up nuclear weapons but did not receive real protection when Putin began to occupy Ukrainian territories.

“I said that when the Budapest Memorandum was signed by very respectable, powerful nuclear countries, it said that Ukraine was giving up nuclear weapons, and Ukraine would have territorial integrity and sovereignty from those very respectable countries, including Russia, China, the United States at that time. That’s what I said,” Zelenskyy said.

According to him, “this means that we gave nuclear weapons, and these people who were partners at the time, they had to give us security guarantees.”

“Therefore, we have no alternative but NATO,” Zelenskyy stressed.

Earlier, the president said that in a conversation with US presidential candidate Donald Trump, he stressed the importance of Ukraine’s membership in NATO.

“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… What is the way out? 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 involved in war today. People in NATO countries do not die in war. And thank God for that! That is why we choose NATO over nuclear weapons. And I believe that Donald Trump heard me. He said that these are fair arguments. I think this is important,” Zelenskyy said.

Against this backdrop, Bild analyst Julian Röpke wrote that he had the opportunity to speak with an unnamed senior Ukrainian official who said that Ukraine would not allow another “Russian march on Kyiv”.

According to him, in this case, the Ukrainian nuclear arsenal, which the country voluntarily abandoned in the 1990s, will 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,” warned this Ukrainian official involved in arms supplies.

He added that the West needs to “worry less about Russia’s red lines and think much more about where Ukraine’s red lines are”.

The Office of the President of Ukraine called Bild’s article “nonsense”.

“It has long been possible to confuse Röpke’s words with statements by Russian propagandists. Both of them ‘throw the same nonsense into the information space’,” presidential adviser Dmytro Lytvyn said in a commentary to Channel 24.

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