Zelenskiy hints at resurrecting nuclear weapons, sending a mild warning to an indecisive West

UKRAINE - In Brief 17 Oct 2024 by Dmytro Boyarchuk

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Today in Brussels, while presenting the Victory Plan to EU leaders, President Volodymyr Zelensky mentioned that during his conversation with Donald Trump in September, he told Trump that Ukraine would either join NATO or pursue nuclear weapons. The narrative about the need to resurrect nuclear weapons has been circulating in Kyiv for some time, particularly given that neither of the Budapest Memorandum guarantors (which provided security assurances to Ukraine from Russia, the United States, and the United Kingdom in exchange for abandoning nuclear weapons) have fully honored their commitments. The West, so fearful of Moscow's nuclear blackmail, seems to have forgotten that peaceful Ukrainians once possessed nuclear technology and likely still have the capability to resume nuclear weapons production. While I don’t have specific details on current capacities, scientists in this field are still in place, and it appears more a matter of political will than technical inability to restart production. With Western voices pushing for Ukraine to make territorial concessions growing louder, it seems Volodymyr Zelensky has decided to remind them of this long-overlooked fact. If speaking from the position of a nuclear power is the only way to be heard, why should Ukraine shy away from doing so? No doubt, nuclear rhetoric is a 'last resort' tool, as the West could easily temper Ukraine's nuclear ambitions by leveraging its financial influence. However, Ukrainian leadership has clearly indicated that if the situation worsens dramatically for Ukrainians, this option remains on the table.