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Ukraine inherited a large nuclear arsenal from the Soviet era. Could it use nuclear weapons to defend itself if the future government of Donald Trump stopped its military aid? The Ukrainian government has commented on this possibility.
Could nuclear weapons enter the war in Ukraine, 2 and a half years after the start of the Russian invasion? A document from the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense, consulted by the British daily The Timessuggests that Volodymyr Zelensky’s country could develop “a rudimentary nuclear bomb within a few months if Donald Trump withdraws American military assistance.”
Last week, The Kiyv Independent had revealed that during his meeting with Donald Trump in September, Volodymyr Zelensky assured that Ukraine would “join NATO or develop nuclear weapons”. The Ukrainian president then retracted his statements. What is it really? Can Ukraine develop a nuclear weapons program and use them to defend itself against Russia?
A large Soviet nuclear arsenal
Let’s go back. On August 24, 1991, the independence of Ukraine was proclaimed. On December 8, the dislocation of the USSR was recorded by the Minsk Agreement. Ukraine inherits a large nuclear arsenal, which constituted 17% of Soviet assets, or around 2,500 tactical warheads and more than 1,500 warheads contained in intercontinental missiles. The Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (Start) is signed.
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In 1994, with the Budapest Memorandum, Ukraine agreed to destroy these weapons in exchange for security guarantees from the United States, the United Kingdom and Russia and economic support.
“Creating a simple atomic bomb would not be a difficult task.”
30 years later, Ukraine is fighting to defend its territory against Vladimir Putin’s army and the country retains know-how in the nuclear industry. “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,” the Ukrainian report said, cited 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.”
The report even specifies that Ukraine could obtain plutonium from nuclear reactors under Ukrainian control with a view to creating hundreds of tactical warheads. According to The Kyiv IndependentUkraine would be able to create a primitive uranium fission bomb within 5 years but it would be much more difficult to make a plutonium fission bomb. And a hydrogen bomb would be even more complicated to produce.
Faced with these press reports, Ukraine strongly denied this week. “Ukraine is committed to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. We do not possess, do not develop or intend to acquire nuclear weapons,” the spokesperson reacted on X of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Heorhii Tykhyi. He adds that Ukraine “excludes the use of nuclear materials for military purposes.” Without forgetting that the Russians have, on their side, nuclear weapons.
Ukraine under surveillance
If Ukraine decided to produce deterrent nuclear weapons, the financial cost would be prohibitive for a country facing the third year of war. “A nuclear weapons program would jeopardize relations with Western partners,” said Sascha Bruchmann, a military analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies based in London.
Ukraine would also expose itself to strong political reactions from its Western allies whose aid remains essential to provide it with conventional weapons in order to defend itself against the Russians.
