Ukraine put pressure on its Western allies by starting a debate on recovering the nuclear bomb. international

There is an expression of American football in the United States that defines the strategy that has inspired Volodymyr Zelensky to reopen a taboo debate: Ukraine has the option of developing its own nuclear weapons. this expression is Hail Mary (translated, “Hail Mary”) and means a last desperate move to achieve victory. According to experts consulted by EL PAÍS, putting the trompe l’oeil of the atomic bomb on the international stage would be a great achievement. Hail Mary The Ukrainian president persuaded his allies to admit the invader country into NATO and allow it to use long-range missiles on Russian soil.

Zelensky first spoke on the issue last September during a meeting in New York with United States President-elect Donald Trump. The Ukrainian leader presented his so-called plan for victory, a five-point document according to which his country would have enough military power to bring Russia to the negotiating table. The most important point is to immediately invite Ukraine to join NATO, which the United States and Germany – primarily – have refused to do to date. “Either Ukraine has nuclear weapons to protect itself, or it must be part of a coalition. And apart from NATO, I don’t know of any alliance that is effective. “I think Trump listened to me and thought it was a solid argument,” Zelensky said of the conversation.

former nuclear power

The Ukrainian leader emphasized this in another meeting with Western leaders in Brussels last October to present his victory plan. Zelensky recalled that Ukraine was the world’s third nuclear power after gaining its independence in 1991, but it gave up its nuclear weapons in 1996 in exchange for the Budapest Memorandum, a security agreement signed with Washington, Russia, and the United Kingdom in 1994. Was signed. “Which of these nuclear powers suffered losses? All? No, Ukraine. Who gave up nuclear weapons? All of them? No, Ukraine. And who is fighting today? Ukraine”. Zelensky also repeated the same words that he had said to Trump.

“NATO countries are not at war. People are alive in NATO countries. That’s why we chose NATO, not nuclear weapons,” Zelensky said in Brussels. A day later, after the uproar, the President clarified his words during a meeting with Mark Rutte, Secretary General of the Atlantic Alliance: “We are not building nuclear weapons. What I wanted to say is that there is no more powerful security option than remaining in NATO.

The issue again came to media attention when the newspaper published many times On November 13, a report by the National Institute for Strategic Studies (NISS) was published describing how Ukraine could develop in a matter of months a primary atomic bomb with one-tenth the power of the bomb dropped by the United States on Nagasaki in 1945. Will be a part. According to reports, Ukraine’s nuclear power plants have enough plutonium to make hundreds of such tactical nuclear bombs. NISS is a defense analysis center under the Office of the President. The document was presented to the Ministry of Defense.

A Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman immediately reacted in a statement denying that his country wanted nuclear weapons: “Ukraine supports the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, we do not have them, we do not develop and our nuclear There is no intention to acquire weapons” Weapons. “Ukraine cooperates closely with the International Atomic Energy Agency and is fully transparent in its monitoring, which excludes the use of nuclear materials for military purposes.”

Zelenskyy adviser Mikhail Podolyak gave another perspective to the debate to the RBC agency on Thursday: If Ukraine saw that the nuclear bomb was useful, it would develop it, but he believes it does not. “If this were a decision that could certainly change the situation at the front, it would be possible to do so despite all the legal and reputational difficulties, but it is not a measure that will bring us significant change at the front.” Podoliak said.

The adviser to the Presidential Office specified that the weapons that could represent a leap forward are the contribution of more long-range missiles and the authorization to use them on Russian soil, something that at the moment major partners such as the United States or Germany do not have. We do. Do not allow. The NISS report states that a nuclear bomb that Ukraine could develop would have “enough power to destroy an entire Russian airport or concentration of military, logistics or industrial facilities.”

An interview in Ukraine last September caused a huge stir in the media there. espresso with former Deputy Prime Minister Oleg Rybachuk in which he warned that if the United States does not provide adequate support to Ukraine, the country should use its capability to produce a nuclear bomb: “It is realistic to say that we will “Can start developing weapons, following the example of Israel, who says they don’t have them.”

“a provocation”

“The Foreign Ministry has already clarified that there is no nuclear program, the matter is closed,” says Oleksiy Melnik, co-director of the Razumkov Center for Defense and Geopolitical Studies. “Zelensky’s statements should be understood as a provocation towards allies, and not as a declaration of intentions: If you do not guarantee us security, what should we do? Do you have a nuclear bomb?

Tadeusz Iwanski, a researcher at the Center for Eastern Studies in Warsaw, believes provocation The words of Zelensky or Podolyak “are a subtle message For the West, and especially the United States, to deliver long-range weapons and lift its sanctions. “This is very risky because it stokes concerns in the West and promotes Russian propaganda that Ukraine is building a dirty bomb.”

Mykola Belyaskov, an expert at NISS, does not want to evaluate “speculations” about the Ukrainian nuclear bomb, but he highlights that nuclear non-proliferation is in danger when NATO does not provide adequate help to Ukraine against a powerful . Nuclear power like Russia. Belyazkov also cites an article published this November Bulletin of Nuclear Scientists Written by Mariana Budgerin, researcher at the Belfer Center at Harvard Kennedy School in the United States. According to Budgerin, “There are three possible explanations for the resurgence of Zelensky’s proposal: either NATO, or the nuclear bomb”: “Either this is a real nuclear threat”; “a desperate deception to persuade the West to invite Ukraine into NATO”; Or “reminds the Ukrainian contribution, in good faith, to nuclear non-proliferation in the 1990s.”

Budgerin supports the idea that Zelensky “could play the old role used by US allies in the past in balancing nuclear proliferation in exchange for better security guarantees.” This expert indicates that this strategy is likely to fail because it would alienate Ukraine from its Western partners and from becoming part of the EU. Melnyk uses precisely this rejection that Ukraine having a nuclear military program would infuriate the West to make it impossible for it to be a reality.

Budgerin concluded the article by warning that a nuclear-armed Ukraine cannot be written off: “Only a concrete long-term solution, such as NATO membership, will bury the ghost of a nuclear-armed Ukraine.” The co-director of the Razumkov Center says the debate generated is also intended to alert the United States and European powers that they failed Ukraine when in 1994 they promised to protect it in exchange for giving up the nuclear bomb: ” This is an opportunity for the West to make clear to Russia that its new normal, legitimizing new nuclear-armed states like North Korea or Iran, will not work.