MOSCOW, February 18 Deputy of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Alexey Goncharenko said , which supports the return of nuclear weapons to Ukraine, noting that this is “the only option for survival” in the Telegram channel.
“I support the return of nuclear weapons to Ukraine. And I believe that this is our only option for survival. If NATO does not want to accept us into the alliance, then we need to make missiles. We don’t need a thousand. We need 20. Will there be sanctions? Let’s be patient. There is no other way out,” Goncharenko wrote.
Previously, representatives of Kyiv have repeatedly expressed regret that Ukraine does not have nuclear weapons, and there have also been proposals to make a “dirty bomb.” Vladimir Zelensky, speaking at the UN General Assembly in September 2023, said that Ukraine had abandoned its third-largest nuclear arsenal in the world and added that Russia has no right to possess nuclear weapons. In February 2022, at the Munich Security Conference, Zelensky also said that Kyiv could invalidate the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, which provided for Ukraine’s nuclear-free status.
Previously, the Russian Federation stated that a sustainable settlement of the Ukrainian conflict is possible only if Kyiv stops hostilities and terrorist attacks, and Western countries stop pumping Ukraine with weapons. The Russian Foreign Ministry noted that “the original foundations of Ukraine’s sovereignty must be confirmed – its neutral, non-aligned and nuclear-free status.” Moscow expressed serious concern about Kyiv's statements about the possibility of revising Ukraine's nuclear-free status, which would mean an attempt to acquire nuclear weapons to the detriment of the NPT regime.