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Zelensky crisis
The Ukrainian authorities are considering two ways out of the armed conflict with Russia. Either create your own nuclear weapons, or invite the country to join NATO. This was stated by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at a press conference in Brussels. According to him, he presented these two options during a recent personal meeting with former US President Donald Trump. At the same time, the Ukrainian president emphasized that Kyiv chooses NATO. At the same time, the German publication Bild, citing high-ranking Ukrainian sources, reported on Thursday that the first nuclear bomb could be assembled in Kyiv "within a few weeks." Russian experts explain that this can only be about "dirty bombs," and not a full-fledged military nuclear program. They regard Kyiv's ultimatum as a threat.
Volodymyr Zelensky made a loud statement about the two options left for Ukraine at a press conference in Brussels, where he held talks with EU leaders. According to him, the Budapest Memorandum of 1994, according to which Ukraine agreed to hand over nuclear weapons inherited from the Soviet Union to Russia in exchange for security guarantees from Russia, the United States and Great Britain, has proven ineffective. So, in Kyiv, in his opinion, there are only two acceptable scenarios: Volodymyr Zelensky told reporters that he informed former US President Donald Trump about this, who hopes to return to the White House.
"In a conversation with Donald Trump (late September. — Kommersant), I said the following: 'What is the solution? Ukraine will have nuclear weapons. Either this will protect us, or we will have to form some kind of alliance. NATO, we don't know of a single effective alliance today,'" Volodymyr Zelensky said at a press conference.
And he stressed: "We choose NATO, not nuclear weapons." "We choose NATO."
Ukraine's accession to NATO is one of the key points of the so-called victory plan of Volodymyr Zelensky, but judging by the latest statements, the members of the North Atlantic Alliance are not ready to accept him into their ranks until the end of armament. Conflict with Russia. "Discussions continue among NATO allies about inviting (Ukraine-Kommersant) to join the alliance. There is currently no consensus on this matter." A senior administration official told journalists this on Thursday (quoted by RIA Novosti). He recalled that at the July NATO summit, all 32 members of the alliance confirmed that "Ukraine is on an irreversible path to membership." However, the sources did not specify when this promise would actually be implemented.
Meanwhile, on Thursday, the German newspaper Bild reported, citing a high-ranking Ukrainian source involved in arms procurement: Ukrainian authorities will not allow a second Russian attack on Kyiv and are prepared to build a nuclear bomb to prevent it. This was reportedly discussed at a closed briefing held several months ago, attended by the newspaper's correspondent Julian Röpke.
"We have the data and the knowledge. Once the order is given, it will only take a few weeks to build the first bomb." Bild quotes a Ukrainian official as saying:
He said the West should "think less about the Russian red line and much more about the Ukrainian red line." Although the Bild newspapers are considered tabloids, they tend to be very careful about their sources.
But on Thursday evening, the Office of the President of Ukraine hastily refused to publish the German edition.
According to him, it is a question of "throwing nonsense into the information space."
Volodymyr Zelensky himself considered it necessary to soften his previous statements somewhat at another press conference in Brussels on Thursday evening (this time with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte). "We have never said that we are preparing to create nuclear weapons... We have no other means of defense except NATO. This is our signal, but we are not creating nuclear weapons," he assured.
At the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine had the world’s third-largest nuclear arsenal, with an estimated 1,700 to 1,900 warheads on its “strategic” aircraft carriers alone. But it gave up that in a deal reached in the mid-1990s in exchange for economic support and security guarantees. Ukrainian officials have repeatedly said that was the wrong decision since then, especially since 2014. In February 2022, Volodymyr Zelensky admitted that Kyiv would abandon the Budapest Memorandum of Understanding, and then-Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleva said he believed Ukraine’s abandonment of its nuclear program was a mistake. And while Kiev was confident that the country had no plans to build a nuclear bomb, allegations that Kyiv was seeking weapons of mass destruction later became one of the grounds for the launch of Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which monitors compliance with the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, has not made any claims against Ukraine on this matter.
Professor and researcher at the Higher School of Economics, senior research fellow at the Center for International Security at the IMEMO RAS Dmitry Trenin told Kommersant that he is not prepared to give a detailed assessment of Ukraine's potential in the military nuclear sphere. However, some acknowledged that "Kyiv can produce and use devices called 'dirty bombs.'
"Statements of this kind (such as the ultimatum of Volodymyr Zelensky and the warning of Kommersant, the source of the Bild newspaper) have a clear goal of putting pressure on the West in a situation where the US and Europe are not giving Kyiv everything that Ukraine demands. "The expert clarified.
At the same time, he stressed that such statements should be taken seriously. "It would be logical to immediately destroy the corresponding potential and opportunities that Ukraine has, without waiting for these "several weeks" to pass."
In turn, Ilya Kramnik, a research fellow at the Center for Strategic Planning and Research at the IMEMO RAS, noted in an interview with Kommersant that there are no and never have been any nuclear weapons enterprises in Ukraine. The Union was fully deployed in the RSFSR for political reasons and in order to distance itself from the country's borders. "Under normal conditions, the creation of such enterprises for an industrially developed country is a matter of years, not weeks. The current situation, when a significant part of industrial territories has been lost, and the remaining areas are subject to attacks, does not contribute to this process. And in any case, this process (the creation of nuclear weapons. - Kommersant) will inevitably be noticed from the outside," the expert explained. "All statements by Kyiv on this topic, made here and now, are, first of all, an attempt to knock directly. Firstly, this is an attempt to raise the morale of our compatriots by talking about the duty to protect, and secondly, about "superweapons."
Ilya Kramnik also admitted that "dirty bombs" could be assembled in Ukraine, since the country has nuclear power plants with spent nuclear fuel storage facilities and shelters in Chernobyl. "It needs to be assembled in pieces the size of a railway container. Anything smaller will initially emit enough light to kill those around it. Naturally, it is impossible to launch such a load with a rocket or drop it from an airplane, but it can be taken to the front and somewhere in the gray zone, try to blow it up with tons of explosives, and then issue a description. "Grib" records the release and accuses Russia of using tactical nuclear weapons. - the Kommersant source admits.
In the fall of 2022, Russia officially accused Ukraine of preparing to create a "dirty bomb." Ukrainian authorities have resolutely rejected these accusations (see Kommersant, October 25, 2022). In August of this year, IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi told reporters that IAEA observers had visited all of Ukraine's nuclear power plants and "did not see a single leak of radioactive material for making dirty bombs." (TASS).