Speaking at a European Council summit in Brussels, Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy suggested that “either Ukraine will have nuclear weapons and that will be our protection, or we should have some sort of alliance. Apart from NATO, today we do not know any effective alliances.” He added: “NATO countries are not at war. People are all alive in NATO countries. And thank God. That is why we choose NATO. Not nuclear weapons.” According to reports, at the same press conference he indicated that he had told President Trump the same thing when they met.
Probably under pressure to back off from that threat, later in the day in a press conference with the new NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, Zelenskyy made a “clarification” of his remarks, “We are not building nuclear weapons,” he said. “What I meant is that today there is no stronger security guarantee for us besides NATO membership.”
Nevertheless, perhaps sparked by that admission, the German daily Bild today carries a story about the statements of an unnamed Ukrainian official in arms procurement, who claimed some months ago that Ukraine has the capability of building its own nuclear weapon. “We have the material, we have the knowledge. If the order is given, it will only take us a few weeks to make the first bomb,” he said. The West should “think less about Russia’s red lines” and “much more” about Ukraine’s, the Ukrainian representative warned.
It is an open question whether Ukraine, without the assistance of the Western powers, has the capacity to build a nuclear weapon, given the general takedown of its scientific capabilities during the course of the conflict. But the threat, itself, should be taken seriously, since even something as primitive as a “dirty bomb” could be constructed and have devastating consequences.
