Ukraine Responds to Nuclear Bomb Claims

Ukraine has said it is not considering developing nuclear weapons as a security measure, following reports that suggested it could create a bomb quickly.

Heorhii Tykhyi, Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesperson, responded to claims that Kyiv could develop a nuclear bomb within months if U.S. support for Ukraine dried up under the incoming U.S. President Donald Trump, who has criticized Washington aid for Kyiv.

Since the start of his full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin and his allies have issued numerous nuclear threats, which are also amplified by Kremlin propagandists on state-run media.

British newspaper The Times said that a briefing paper prepared for the Ukrainian Defense Ministry outlined how, lacking time to construct and deploy huge uranium enrichment facilities, Kyiv could still construct a rudimentary weapon within months, using plutonium from spent nuclear fuel reactor rods.

Newsweek has contacted the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry for comment.

However, Tykhyi posted on X, formerly Twitter, that Kyiv "works closely with the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) and is fully transparent to its monitoring." The post added that this "rules out the use of nuclear materials for military purposes."

"Ukraine is committed to the NPT," Tykhyi said, referring to the international non-proliferation treaty; "we do not possess, develop or intend to acquire nuclear weapons," his post added.

Last month, Ukraine's Foreign Ministry has denied a report in German media outlet Bild, which cited an unnamed Ukrainian source that Kyiv was looking to develop WMDs [weapons of mass destruction].

There has been speculation about Ukraine's nuclear options after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on October 17 he had told Trump that Kyiv must either join NATO or pursue a nuclear deterrent.

The Ukrainian president later said his country is not pursuing nuclear weapons and that he merely emphasizing the failures of the 1994 Budapest Memorandum; in it, Kyiv relinquished its nuclear weapons for security guarantees, which Zelensky felt have not been met.

This illustrative image from April 11, 2024 shows the Khmelnytsky Nuclear Power Plant (KhNPP) Khmelnytsky, Ukraine. Kyiv has denied a report it could seek to develop nuclear weapons from plutonium, using spent nuclear fuel reactor... SERGEI SUPINSKY/Getty Images

The Times report published Thursday noted how Kyiv was in control of nine operational reactors as well as considerable expertise. This would allow Ukraine to call upon seven tons of plutonium, which could create warheads with a tactical yield of several kilotons.

With about one-10th the power of the Fat Man atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, in 1945, such a weapon could "destroy an entire Russian airbase or concentrated military, industrial or logistics installations," said the report co-authored by Oleksii Yizhak from Ukraine's National Institute for Strategic Studies.

While the research is not endorsed by the Kyiv government, it does set out the circumstances in which Ukraine could withdraw from the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT), whose ratification depended on the memorandum's security guarantees, The Times said.