Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky sought clarification after his comments on nuclear weapons at the EU summit in Brussels. The politician surprised himself with a nuclear mind game.
Ukraine does not want to “create a threat to the world, nor nuclear weapons,” Zelensky said in an interview with several journalists on Ukrainian television on Friday. For him it is important “to be understood very precisely”.
What was said?
Zelensky said at the EU summit on Thursday: “Either Ukraine has nuclear weapons that serve as protection, or it must be a member of an alliance.” “We don’t know any alliance that is as efficient” as NATO, he emphasized.
Moments later, at NATO headquarters in Brussels, he dismissed media reports that he had hinted at a possible rearmament of his country with nuclear weapons during his appearance at the EU summit. “We have never talked about preparing to build nuclear weapons,” the president said.
Kiev has ceded nuclear weapons to Russia
After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Ukraine had the third largest nuclear arsenal in the world. After receiving security guarantees from Russia and the US, the country transferred its nuclear weapons to Russia. These security guarantees, known as the Budapest Memorandum, required signatories to respect the territorial integrity and independence of Ukraine and other former Soviet republics.
His country gave up its nuclear weapons under the Budapest Memorandum for “the guarantee of security and territorial integrity” but received nothing in return, Zelensky said in the TV interview on Friday. The memorandum was violated without stopping Russia.
Zelensky wants to be admitted to NATO
The Ukrainian president emphasized that Ukraine does not want to return under a ‘nuclear umbrella’, but under NATO membership. “We are a peaceful state. NATO is now better than any weapon. Especially dangerous ones like this.”
The German government also tried to put things in order on Friday. At the EU summit in Brussels, Selenskyj pointed to Russia’s violation of the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, deputy government spokesman Wolfgang Büchner said in Berlin. In it, Ukraine declared that it would renounce its own nuclear weapons, and in return Russia guaranteed Ukrainian state sovereignty and integrity. “We see every day that Russia does not follow the rules,” Büchner said.
Threatening background from Moscow
A spokesperson for the Foreign Ministry in Berlin pointed out that Ukraine is “the only country in the world that has ever possessed and surrendered nuclear weapons.” However, Russia is trampling on the Budapest Memorandum. The ministry spokesperson also pointed out that Ukraine had last committed to the goal of nuclear disarmament in a world without nuclear weapons in the summer of this year.
Kremlin boss Vladimir Putin dismissed Zelensky’s comments on Friday as a “dangerous provocation.” “There will be an appropriate response to any step in this direction,” Putin told foreign journalists. Putin said he did not know whether Ukraine was capable of developing a nuclear weapon, but added that this was “not difficult in the modern world.” He could certainly say that “Russia will not let this happen under any circumstances.”
Source: Krone
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