Faced with the threats looming on the horizon, whether it is the advance of Russian troops in the Donbass or a possible abandonment of the United States, Ukraine could embark on an extreme path, that of nuclear weapons. The country will not start from nowhere.
When the Soviet Union fell in 1991, it inherited a huge nuclear arsenal of around 2,500 tactical warheads and more than 1,500 warheads contained in intercontinental missiles. kyiv agreed to destroy them three years later in exchange for security guarantees and ratified the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.
“If Donald Trump withdraws American military assistance”
According to the British newspaper The Times, kyiv could develop “ a rudimentary nuclear bomb within a few months if Donald Trump withdraws American military assistance », According to a document prepared for the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense and which the British newspaper was able to consult. This document does not talk about manufacturing a nuclear bomb of the same type as those possessed in large numbers by the United States, Russia or France, but about designing a basic bomb.
« The country would quickly be able to build a simple plutonium-based device with technology similar to that of the Fat Man bomb dropped on Nagasaki in 1945 », According to this report consulted by The Times.
« Creating a simple atomic bomb, as the United States did in the Manhattan Project, would not be a difficult task 80 years later “, this document further indicates. The decision could be made if the Russian army reaches the town of Pavlograd, near Dnipro and about 100 kilometers from the current front line.
“We are still at the science fiction stage”
The report even specifies how Ukraine could obtain the uranium necessary for the bomb: by relying on the plutonium used in the nine nuclear reactors still under kyiv's control (the Zaporizhzhia power plant and its six reactors are occupied by the Russians since 2022). The approximately seven tons of Ukrainian plutonium would in theory make it possible to create hundreds of tactical warheads of several kilotons, sufficient to destroy Russian bases or troop concentrations.
The journalist Cyrille Amoursky, correspondent in Ukraine, recalls that at this stage there is “ no tangible element other than a document which could confirm such an idea ». « We are still at the science fiction stage, and I think there is no point in getting into long discussions on this subject. The idea in the public debate is nevertheless extraordinary and very unexpected », he adds.
This Ukraine specialist notes that the process of designing an atomic bomb would take months, under the necessarily very watchful eye of the Russians “ with probably ultimatums issued to the Ukrainian government » to give it up. Cyrille Amoursky also questions the Russian response in the event of the use of an atomic bomb which risks being “ catastrophic ».
« Obtaining a nuclear deterrent would ensure a decisive advantage in the war which could potentially end it (without reconquering the occupied territories) and ensure peace for the future.also observes Louis Duclos, geopolitical analyst, on X. It is too risky at the moment to embark on the development of the atomic bomb but above all note the timing of this announcement: right after the election of Trump when all hope of support from the United States disappears. »
NATO or the bomb?
Last week, the Kiyv Independent had already revealed that Volodymyr Zelensky had raised the subject with Donald Trump during a meeting in September. The Ukrainian president reportedly assured that Ukraine “ would join NATO or develop nuclear weapons “. An argument that the new American president would have judged “ just ».
Questioned by our Ukrainian colleagues, Robert Kelley, an American nuclear engineer, believes that it would be possible for Ukraine “ to create a primitive uranium fission bomb within five years “. From a technological point of view, Ukraine is capable of this. “ It's a pretty simple thing to do in the 19th century “, he said.
« Nuclear weapons program would jeopardize relations with Ukraine's Western partnershowever, warned Sascha Bruchmann, military analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies based in London. I don't see any U.S. government that would support Ukraine's nuclear ambitions. Ukraine would thus risk losing a lot of political and military support. The political, economic and military costs are prohibitive. »
France
