After the collapse of the USSR, Ukraine agreed to the withdrawal of Soviet nuclear weapons by signing the Budapest Memorandum. In exchange, he received security guarantees which today prove to be worthless. According to the British newspaper The Times, an investigation commissioned by the Ukrainian Defense Ministry concluded that Ukraine could develop nuclear bombs within months. The press is divided.

The threat could work to Kyiv’s advantage

Simply giving the impression that it could acquire nuclear weapons could make strategic sense for Ukraine, The Independent believes:

“Ukrainians have long deplored the decision of their first post-communist government, in 1994, to transfer Soviet-era atomic weapons from its territory to Russia. … Any Ukrainian nuclear bomb manufactured in a crisis would have negligible military value, and its use against a civilian target like Moscow would outrage kyiv’s friends and could provoke cataclysmic retaliation from Putin. But raising the issue might serve a rational purpose for Zelensky. This could push the Europeans and Americans to put pressure on Russia to make peace before it goes too far.”

Only if absolutely necessary

Defense expert Rainer Saks doubts that kyiv really intends to develop nuclear weapons in Postimees:

“Ukrainian leaders, up to the president, have ruled out this possibility, although they now regret the decision taken in the Budapest memorandum, because a large-scale Russian offensive could have been avoided if Ukraine had nuclear weapons . …However, the author of the Ukrainian newspaper seen by the Times believes that a nuclear bomb could be developed if military aid from the United States and other countries was withdrawn and the Russian army attacked Pavlohrad, near from Dnipro.”

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