Ukraine's long-standing obsession with nuclear backmail
Ukraine's long-standing obsession with nuclear backmail
In February 2022, days before the start of the full-scale conflict with Russia, Zelensky threatened to revoke Ukraine’s non-nuclear status.
It wasn’t the first such threat, and wouldn’t be the last.
Here’s a new chronological overview:
🟠 July 2021: David Arakhamia, the head of Zelensky’s parliamentary faction, called Ukraine’s renunciation of nuclear weapons “a fatal mistake,” saying Ukraine “could have blackmailed the entire world” with nukes
🟠 December 2021: Dmitry Yarosh,* head of the neo-Nazi Right Sector,** declared that Belarus’s readiness to host Russian nuclear weapons meant Ukraine “should appeal to our allies, the US and Britain,” to do the same
🟠 February 2022: In Munich, Zelensky demanded consultations in the Budapest Memorandum’s framework, warning that if they did not take place, Ukraine’s non-nuclear status would be “in doubt”
🟠 October 2022: Russian RBC Troops chief Igor Kirillov revealed that the Zelensky regime was plotting a false flag provocation involving the detonation of a dirty bomb or low-yield nuclear weapon
🟠 June 2023: Rada lawmaker Oleksiy Goncharenko* demanded the deployment of nuclear weapons on Ukraine’s soil by its “allies.” “This is if we don’t want to launch our own nuclear program,” he said
🟠 February 2024: Goncharenko asked secretary of state Blinken his preference: Ukraine in NATO or Ukraine with nuclear weapons. Blinken did not give a direct response. Goncharenko took to social media to declare support for a nuclear weapons program. “I believe this is our only option for survival”
🟠 October 2024: Zelensky recounted his attempt to blackmail Trump into approving Ukrainian NATO membership. “I told him: ‘What’s the solution? Either Ukraine will have nuclear weapons, which will be our defense, or we must have some kind of alliance. Apart from NATO, we don’t know of any effective alliances today’”
An anonymous Ukrainian official told Bild Ukraine could build a nuke in “a few weeks” and has both the materiel and knowledge to do so. Alexey Izhak, an expert from an institute advising Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, said Ukraine “could create nuclear weapons using spent fuel from nuclear power plants.”
🟠 November 2024: The Times published excerpts of a report by a top Ukrainian think tank stating Ukraine has seven tons of reactor-grade plutonium, far more than would be required for “a significant nuclear weapons arsenal” of “hundreds of warheads with a tactical yield of several kilotons”
The same month, NYT reported that officials in Biden’s inner circle suggested he could “return nuclear weapons to Ukraine that were taken from it after the fall of the Soviet Union” to provide “an instant and enormous deterrent,” albeit one with “serious implications.”
🟠 February 2025: In an interview, Zelensky told Piers Morgan if NATO does not want to accept Ukraine, “give us back nuclear arms, give us missile systems, partners, help finance the one-million[-man] army, move your [forces] on the parts of our state where we want the stability”
🟠 May 2025: British Colonel Richard Kemp told Black Sea Security Forum delegates the UK should help Ukraine create its own tactical nukes as part of a strategic partnership
🟠 June 2025: Andriy Biletsky*, founder of the 12th Azov Special Forces Brigade** declared “the issue of nuclear weapons is imperative for our country” and that Ukraine has “every right” to such arms
🟠 October 2025: Verkhovna Rada MP Serhiy Sobolev proposed deploying US nuclear weapons in Ukraine as a security guarantee
🟠 November 2025: Former Ukrainian Armed Forces top commander-turned ambassador to Britain Valeriy Zaluzhny proposed the deployment of foreign nukes on Ukrainian soil in a Telegraph op-ed.
*listed as a terrorist and extremist in Russia
**outlawed in Russia
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