Zelensky says that either Ukraine will join NATO or pursue nuclear weapons

Good. It’s unbelievable that Russia has managed to violate multiple international treaties, when Ukraine is suffering for trying to abide by them. We’ve been playing the “oblivious school teacher” role for too long.

Since the west were instrumental in the deal to remove the nuclear weapons in the first place they should be obligated to remove Russia from Ukraine at this point.

As a former nuclear state that peacefully gave up its arsenal, I’d say Ukraine has as much right to nuclear weapons as any other country. The world gave Ukraine legal guarantees in exchange for disarmament, and the world failed those guarantees. 

Ukraine relinquished nukes for security assurances and then Russia invaded them 30 years later anyway, seems sensible since their neighbour is being aggressive and nobody else is adequately helping.

Good discussion about this going on another thread, but the source was the Kyiv Post, who in turn used Bild as a source, which suggested they’d have one in “weeks”. So unfortunately that’s now deleted – bullshit from Bild, but some great comments/analysis.

In short – this is potential suicide for Ukraine.

There are *strong* treaties against the proliferation of nukes, which we in the West largely police, see Iran for example. Turning a blind eye to this causes a total geopolitical nightmare which gets very nasty, potentially very quickly.

It’s a choice for Ukraine – pursue this, or risk losing Western backing. The US for a start will be having none of it.

That might be the answer though – Zelensky is being shrewd, as ever, and giving a hearty ultimatum. Give us more support, or we go nuclear. Whether that risk is worth it for us, and I’d imagine more details are being given via back channels, remains to be seen.

This is likely Zelensky forcing us into a tough position – either help us, or we go for the nuclear option.

Let’s just hope it works out.

The West is playing softball with Russia because imo we aren’t serious about Ukraine winning, we are just serious about bleeding the Russians dry and attempting to cause a second collapse of the Russian government.

Either the West mans up and greatly expedites weapon shipments AND removes ALL asinine weapon restrictions (both militarily and politically stupid I might add, cowardly Biden and Germany) or provide Ukraine with nuclear weapons and tell Putin to eat shit.

Asking Ukraine to militarily defeat Russia with 1 hand tied behind their back is just insane.

From a defence standpoint, Ukraine really has every right to pursue this course of action as unfortunate as that is. They co-operated and disarmed the leftover nuclear arsenal from the USSR and as a result they’re now in the one circumstance that EVERY nation uses as a reason for why they have nukes “If we don’t have them, we get fucked”.

No Nato? Okay well then they’re obviously going to pursue whatever route they can to stonewall any future offensive.

I mean, what a symbol to every country, that giving up nuclear weapons and get security deals with two powerful nations will prevent you from beeing invaded. I mean who would give up their nuclear arsenal ever now?

Ok, well as a damn Yankee I think he can do whatever he wants. We didn’t ask permission and neither did any other atomic power. Europe wanting to pretend he needs to justify defending his nation against Russia is laughable. I hope he fights, I hope he wins! Glory to Ukraine!

That actually sounds reasonable. No one wants nuclear proliferation, but aside from capitulation, Ukraine has no other options left—especially with the West being highly reluctant to put boots on the ground and directly assist Ukraine.

Give back the nukes that Ukraine gave up for the Budapest memorandum. That memorandum is void due to russia..

And who could blame them?

Putin disliked this

It’s always important to consider WHY people say things more than WHAT they say. This is the first time Ukraine has mentioned it’s own nukes. Why?

They want a path to end the war. They seized parts of Kursk to get Russia’s attention, and to divert resources from other sectors in the south. That was never going to be a permanent occupation, and indeed – the Russians are already re-claiming Kursk territory that Ukraine was never seriously expecting to actually HOLD – just rather to keep bleeding the Russians, but on home turf.

The West is dithering on giving them what they figure they need to win the war – additional machinery, capabilities, and permission to strike further into Russia to mitigate the danger of stand-off bombing, active missile defense, ultimately a no-fly zone or direct intervention. So – Ukraine is not-so-gently reminding people they had the third largest arsenal in the world in 1991, and still have the capability to get back at least to where North Korea and Pakistan are in terms of capability, if you keep screwing with them.

It’s a shot across the bow more to the West than to Russia, I’d wager. Help us, or we’re going to have to help ourselves in a more escalatory way.

I think Zelenskey understands the world as it is. Either it’s strength in alliances, or it’s strength in nuclear warheads.

Let’s just all have nukes. Why should Pakistan have them, and not Ukraine? Why only North Korea, and not South Korea? If China has nukes, so should Japan and Taiwan. Then let’s see a fucker try to start something. It’ll be the ultimate Mexican standoff. Non-proliferation is dead. RIP.

Why is he saying, he talked to Trump or Trump is ok with this? Hes not the current president, has no mandate. Plus the EU hates Trump. This makes no sense.

Without Russia/China/Iran helping them, how are they actually going to do it?

They were promised protection in exchange for dismantling their nukes after the fall of the Soviet Union. of course they’re going to start back up once its clear that agreement was bullshit.

This is like all the Americans getting pissed off at Iran for restarting their nuke program after we reneged on all our promises. Like what did you expect to happen?

I think this is more so posturing to deal with the threat of a trump presidency, the moment Ukraine starts down the path of obtaining nukes they will likely lose basically all material western support, leaving them by themselves to try complete a bomb before the front lines crumble without the western support, meanwhile Putin would likely be doing anything and everything in his power to destroy Ukrainian nuclear infrastructure. I know they are not starting from nothing, but there is a lot of steps and testing before getting a functioning weapon. It just seems like a pretty big gamble

While still a long process, Ukraine is absolutely capable of producing a functional nuclear weapon, probably in as few of 2-3 years after starting the program. 

We were capable of making them with 1945 technology. Engineering has improved just marginally since then /s. 

With modern tech, any nation in the top 60-70 economies, could access nuclear weapons relatively quickly. If we want to keep nuclear weapons from becoming a norm, we need to ensure that those nations have the backing of the rest of the world, or else every Tom, Dick and Hungary will have nukes