‘Either Nukes or Alliance’ – Zelensky Raises Specter of Ukraine Becoming Nuclear Again

It’s either joining NATO or building nukes, President Volodymyr Zelensky said he told Donald Trump.

The statement marked the first occasion after the 2022 full-scale invasion that Zelensky directly referred to Ukraine’s possible return to being a nuclear state.

Speaking in Brussels to the European Council on Thursday, Zelensky said he told the US Republican presidential nominee that Ukraine’s answer to Russia’s invasion is either restoring its nuclear capability or joining NATO, and Ukraine is opting for the latter.

It’s unclear when the conversation between Zelensky and Trump took place.

Zelensky also brought up the Budapest Memorandum in his speech, a 1990s security agreement that saw Kyiv relinquishing its nuclear arsenal following the dissolution of the USSR in return for security guarantees from the US, the UK, and Russia that were never released upon Moscow’s invasion.

“Which nuclear states suffered? None except Ukraine... Who gave up their nuclear weapons? All of them? No. Only Ukraine... Who is fighting today? Ukraine,” Zelensky told the European Council.

He then referred to his alleged conversation with Trump.

“As such – and in a conversation with Donald Trump I said – this is our situation,” Zelensky added.

“What way out do we have? Either Ukraine will have nuclear weapons, which for us will be a defense, or we’ll need to have some sort of alliance, besides NATO. But today we know of no other alliance. NATO countries today are not at war. NATO countries are not fighting. In NATO countries people are still alive. Thank God. That is why we choose NATO, not nuclear weapons.

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“And Donald Trump heard me. He said you have a just argument,” Zelensky said.

Up until Dec. 5, 1994, Ukraine was officially the third-largest nuclear power in the world.

Due to the strategic location of Ukraine during the Cold War, it inherited a formidable nuclear arms stockpile upon the dissolution of the Soviet Union alongside Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan.

Its nuclear arsenal included close to 1,700 strategic nuclear warheads, as well as a bomber fleet and intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) that rivaled most other nuclear-capable nations at the time.

However, it is to be noted that while Ukraine physically possessed the weapons and the expertise to develop and maintain them – although the lack of resources would’ve likely prevented it from doing so – Moscow retained control over these weapons.

While a think tank reported that Ukraine possesses “no uranium enrichment plant or fuel production facilities for nuclear power plants,” where “Ukrainian uranium concentrate was shipped to Russia for enrichment and fuel fabrication” prior to the 2022 invasion, it’s possible the country retained the knowledge base needed to restart its nuclear programs if it so wishes.