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Kiev claims it could get an A-bomb, unless it receives Western protection against Russia
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has said his nation will have every right to become a nuclear power, citing a document signed by leading world states back when Kiev agreed to get rid of Soviet nuclear weapons in exchange for security assurances.
Why all the talk about Ukraine getting nuclear weapons? On Saturday, Zelensky aired the possibility of Ukraine’s acquisition of nuclear weapons. Speaking at the international Munich Security Conference, he complained that signatories of the Budapest Memorandum don’t want to conduct more consultations over Russia’s alleged breach of the agreement. “If [consultations] do not happen again or their results do not guarantee security for our country, Ukraine will have every right to believe that the Budapest Memorandum is not working and all the package decisions of 1994 are in doubt,” he warned.
What Ukrainian nukes? For a short period of its history, Ukraine was a nuclear power. The arsenal was part of Kiev’s legacy after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Newly-formed independent Belarus and Kazakhstan were in a similar position, having hosted Soviet strategic weapons before the break-up.
What is in the Budapest Memorandum? Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan agreed to dismantle their nuclear arsenals and sign the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT), which allows only five nations in the world to possess nuclear weapons: China, France, Russia, the UK, and the US. So-called Budapest memoranda on security assurances – three identical documents with different names of the countries – were signed by the disarming countries as well as the US, the UK, and Russia.
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Ukraine makes nuclear status threat
The document signed by Kiev explained how the US, the UK, and Russia made several commitments regarding Ukraine, including to its “independence and sovereignty” and “the existing borders” of the nation. “if Ukraine should become a victim of an act of aggression or an object of a threat of aggression in which nuclear weapons are used.” Kiev has been arguing since 2014 that Russia breached the agreement when it “occupied” Crimea and parts of Eastern Ukraine.
Did the West fail to defend Ukraine? Some politicians overstated the commitments made by the US and the UK in the Budapest Memorandum. Yulia Tymoshenko, former prime minister of Ukraine, claimed in 2014 that “by declaring war [on Ukraine, Russia was] also declaring war on the guarantors of our security, the United States and Britain.” Legal scholars pointed out that the memorandum doesn’t oblige the US and the UK to defend Ukraine from a foreign aggressor. It just gives them an extra justification to do so, should they choose to intervene militarily. In other words, it’s a security assurance, not a security guarantee, unlike NATO’s mutual defense commitment or the US obligation to defend Japan, for example.
Ukraine go nuclear now? Legally speaking, nothing stops Ukraine from withdrawing from the NPT and developing its own nuclear weapons. North Korea successfully walked this path despite all international efforts to stop Pyongyang.
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Some Ukrainian officials like retired General Petro Garashchuk claimed that Ukraine has retained enough of the technical expertise to obtain a full range of nuclear weapons and delivery systems. Which may be true, an expert told RT. “Technically, Ukraine has an industry that with some changes should be able to create nuclear weapon systems,” Ilya Kramnik, a researcher at the Center for North American Studies at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations, told RT. “I personally believe that there is not a single nuclear power, which will help Ukraine walk this path,” Kramnik said. “Simply because nobody wants to deal with the inevitable wake of problems, which will arise the day it becomes known for sure that Ukraine is developing nuclear weapons.” Rather than offering their approval and help, the US and its allies are more likely to work against it, potentially imposing economic sanctions. Ukraine’s current state of economy and the government’s reliance on foreign aid make Kiev’s chances of doing what Pyongyang did doubtful.
If the proposal is unrealistic, why did the president mention it? It’s not like it’s unprecedented. As was said earlier, the idea has been floated in Ukraine for years, including lately by Kiev’s ambassador in Germany, Andriy Melnyk. “Give us unconditional money. Why every time they allocate us this or that sum, [they say] you have to implement one, two, three, four, five, seven, eight, ten reforms?” he demanded during a panel discussion after the speech. “Look, there is also the war. Is there any other nation in the world, which has such a strong army in the east and which implements reforms? This is not easy,” Zelensky added.
https://ift.tt/ec2uUpi 20, 2022 at 08:14PM
