Play "Russian Roulette": Can Ukraine return nuclear weapons and as it will change the future of war
During the dialogue, the Ukrainian leader reminded Trump to refuse Kiev from nuclear weapons in the 1990s. Ukraine has abandoned the third largest nuclear arsenal in the world, trusting the power of the Budapest Memorandum. The document was signed on December 5, 1994 by Presidents of Ukraine, Russia and the United States Leonid Kuchma, Boris Yeltsin and Bill Clinton, as well as British Prime Minister John Major.
Washington led Kiev to this step for three years, instead, Ukraine was promised to help in the event of an attack. Zelensky directly said Trump that the Budapest Memorandum was not valid. The document did not protect Ukraine from Russian aggression after its abandonment of nuclear weapons. "Which of these great countries, all nuclear states suffered? No? No, one - Ukraine. Who gave nuclear weapons? All? One is Ukraine. Who is at war today? Ukraine. Nuclear weapons, then this is a defense for us.
Ukraine has its fair arguments, Donald Trump answered Zelensky. The German tabloid Bild, citing an anonymous Ukrainian official, later wrote that in Kiev they could "produce a nuclear bomb in a few weeks in a few weeks. Ukraine will not reconcile with the second campaign of the invaders to Kyiv and restore the nuclear arsenal. Later, the adviser to the President of Ukraine for communications Dmitry Lytvyn called Bild's "stupidity".
Sometimes it is difficult to distinguish where information from the author of the material, journalist Julian Ryopke, and where is Russian propaganda. On the same day, at the next press conference with NATO Secretary General, Mark Rutte Zelensky noted that Ukraine is not going to restore the nuclear arsenal. Kiev went to the Budapest Memorandum, counting on security guarantees from the signatories, but the Great War at the initiative of the Russian Federation still began.
"This is not a good umbrella for our safety. That's why I said that I have no alternative except NATO. It was my signal. But we do not create nuclear weapons," the head of state assured. Rutte promised that Ukraine would "be in NATO", and by this point, the event would do everything for its victory. After the start of a full -scale invasion of Russia, the world almost ceased to perceive international law.
The Budapest Memorandum has lost its relevance and in the new conditions Ukraine has to store its own nation independently, referred in a conversation with focus by the Deputy Director of the Center for Army Research, Conversion and Disarmament Mikhail Samus. "Russia aims to destroy Ukrainians, we need to take any measures. We have to go beyond international law, because Moscow has actually neutralized it. Ukraine has the right to speak about both NATO joining and nuclear weapons.
", - comments the analyst. If France, Germany or other Western country were in a similar situation with Ukraine, it would hardly be engaged in moralization, added Samus. "Nuclear weapons are not magic, but a specific tool. For some reason it was turned into a strange design: some countries have the right to have such weapons, and others - no. .
In addition to the so -called legal pool of nuclear powers, Israel does not recognize the presence of nuclear weapons, but according to the Stockholm International Institute for Peace Problems, the state has about 90 nuclear warheads The "Illegal" nuclear club Samus refers to North Korea, India and Pakistan. All of them continue to develop. Will, adds an analyst.
Global errors in the sphere of security do not correct, they are drawn since 2008, when the Russian Federation has attacked Georgia, and in 2014 Ukrainian Crimea annexed, "he notes. Each winged or ballistic missile, released by the aggressor in Ukraine, is a carrier of nuclear weapons . One of our rockets may have a nuclear carrier. I doubt that the Kremlin will want to play such a Russian roulette.
The air defense systems in the aggressor are weaker than Ukrainian: oil plants and ammunition warehouses are not protected. The disappearance of Moscow or St. Petersburg is unlikely to suit Putin, "he emphasizes. Kyiv, according to the expert, should calculate the consequences of creating nuclear potential and whether the Allies will support it. The Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said that during the negotiations with Zelensky.
At the EU summit, he did not see the desire of Ukraine to become a nuclear state. The existing or non -existent Ukrainian plan causes panic in Europe. Special services are working to find out if Ukraine really has a strategy, "Orban said. Samus notes that if Ukraine is invited to NATO, such a radical event will not be needed. Otherwise, nuclear weapons are the only way to keep Ukrainian The nation.