Wild mind game

Nuclear weapons? Zelensky feels misunderstood

Zelenskyi did not want to arm his country with nuclear weapons.

(Bild: AFP/François WALSCHAERTS)

Following his comments on nuclear weapons at the EU summit in Brussels, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky sought clarification. The politician surprised the audience with a nuclear mind game.

Ukraine does not want to "create a danger for the world, nor any nuclear weapons", said Selensky in an interview with several journalists broadcast on Ukrainian television on Friday. It was important to him "to be understood very clearly".

What was said?
Zelenskyi had said at the EU summit on Thursday: "Either Ukraine has nuclear weapons to protect itself or it must be a member of an alliance." "We know of no alliance that is as efficient" as NATO, he emphasized.

A short time later, at NATO headquarters in Brussels, he rejected media reports that he had hinted at a possible rearmament of his country with nuclear weapons during his appearance at the EU summit. "We never talked about preparing to build nuclear weapons," said the president.

Kiev ceded nuclear weapons to Russia
Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Ukraine had the third largest nuclear arsenal in the world. After receiving security guarantees from Russia and the USA, it handed over its nuclear weapons to Russia. These security guarantees, known as the Budapest Memorandum, required the signatories to respect the territorial integrity and independence of Ukraine and other former Soviet republics.

His country had given up its nuclear weapons under the Budapest Memorandum for "the guarantee of security and territorial integrity", but had received nothing in return, Selensky said in the TV interview on Friday. The memorandum had been violated without Russia being stopped.

Zelenskyi wants to be accepted into NATO
Ukraine does not want to be under a "nuclear umbrella" again, but wants NATO membership, the Ukrainian president emphasized. "We are a peaceful state. NATO today is better than any kind of weapon. Especially such dangerous ones."

The German government also tried to put things into perspective on Friday. At the EU summit in Brussels, Zelensky referred to Russia's breach of the Budapest Memorandum of 1994, said Deputy Government Spokesman Wolfgang Büchner in Berlin. In the memorandum, Ukraine had declared that it would renounce its own nuclear weapons, while Russia had guaranteed Ukraine's state sovereignty and integrity in return. We see every day that Russia is not abiding by this," said Büchner.

A threatening backdrop from Moscow
A spokesperson for the Federal Foreign Office in Berlin pointed out that Ukraine is "the only country in the world" that "has ever been in possession of nuclear weapons and has given them up". Russia, however, was "trampling on the Budapest Memorandum". The ministry spokesman also pointed out that Ukraine had last committed itself to the goal of nuclear disarmament in a world free of nuclear weapons in the summer of this year.

Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin rejected Zelensky's comments on Friday as a "dangerous provocation". "There will be a corresponding reaction to every step in this direction," Putin told foreign journalists. He did not know whether Ukraine was capable of developing a nuclear weapon, Putin said, but added that this was "not difficult in the modern world". In any case, he could say "that Russia will not allow this to happen under any circumstances."