Ukraine's Foreign Ministry on Nov. 13 denied media reports suggesting that Kyiv was planning to develop weapons of mass destruction.
"Ukraine is committed to the NPT (the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons); we do not possess, develop, or intend to acquire nuclear weapons," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Heorhii Tykhyi said via X.
"Ukraine works closely with the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) and is fully transparent to its monitoring, which rules out the use of nuclear materials for military purposes."
The Times reported on Nov. 13 that Ukraine could develop a rudimentary nuclear bomb "within months" if U.S. military assistance under President-elect Donald Trump were to cease, according to a briefing paper prepared for the Ukrainian Defense Ministry seen by the outlet.
The report suggests that Ukraine could swiftly build a basic device using plutonium and technology similar to that of the atomic bomb the U.S. dropped on Nagasaki in 1945.
"Creating a simple atomic bomb, as the United States did during the Manhattan Project, would not be a difficult task 80 years later," the document reads.
The Foreign Ministry has previously denied media reports that Ukraine plans to develop its own weapons of mass destruction. Speculation about Ukraine's nuclear options increased after President Volodymyr Zelensky on Oct. 17 said that he told Trump in September that Ukraine must either join NATO or pursue nuclear capabilities for the country's protection.
Zelensky later walked back the comments, saying that Kyiv is not pursuing nuclear weapons and the remarks were made to emphasize the failures of the Budapest Memorandum.
Under the 1994 agreement, Ukraine willingly surrendered its nuclear arsenal in exchange for receiving security guarantees from the U.S., the U.K., and Russia.
Oleg Sukhov
