Kiev can’t build nuclear weapons without West – Moscow

Ukraine lacks the capability to develop nuclear weapons on its own and can only obtain them with help from the West, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said.

Speaking at a press briefing on Wednesday, Zakharova addressed statements by Western officials and media outlets about Kiev having a nuclear deterrent.

“The Kiev regime can’t create nuclear weapons in a few weeks on its own. This is a fact,” Zakharova said, adding that the only way for Ukraine to achieve this would be “to receive important components from the outside, from other states.”

Ukraine should “sort out the heating season rather than seek nuclear weapons,” the Foreign Ministry spokeswoman added.

The current government in Kiev has repeatedly claimed that Ukraine “gave up” nuclear weapons in 1994 in exchange for security assurances from both Russia and the US. Vladimir Zelensky has accused Moscow of violating the ‘Budapest Memorandum’ and claimed that Kiev therefore has the right to acquire nuclear weapons.

Russia has pointed out that Ukraine never had any nuclear weapons to begin with. The memorandum involved Soviet assets that legally belonged to Moscow, while it was the US that trampled on the 1994 deal by sponsoring the Maidan coup in Kiev in 2014, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said.

In early October, German outlet Bild reported that Ukraine was ready to go nuclear, citing an unnamed weapons procurement official.

“We have the material, we have the knowledge. If the order is given, we will only need a few weeks to have the first bomb,” the official was quoted as saying earlier this year, adding that the West should “think less about Russia’s red lines and more about ours.”

Kiev quickly denied Bild’s claims, however, calling it “nonsense” and suggesting that the consistently pro-Ukrainian outlet was in fact publishing “Russian propaganda.”

Last month, however, the Washington Post cited anonymous US officials as speculating that the White House “could allow Ukraine to have nuclear weapons again.” President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, officially denied the reports.