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Kiev must become a nuclear power – MP Kiev must become a nuclear power – MP
(about 13 hours later)
NATO membership will not be sufficient protection, Aleksey Goncharenko has arguedNATO membership will not be sufficient protection, Aleksey Goncharenko has argued
Ukraine must become a nuclear power to protect itself, regardless of the consequences, Aleksey Goncharenko, an ally of former President Pyotr Poroshenko, declared on Tuesday.
Goncharenko, a member of the Ukrainian parliament, argued that NATO membership alone would not guarantee Ukraine’s security.
“NATO is a good thing. But NATO will not defend us. Nuclear weapons would,” Goncharenko wrote on social media. “So we should disregard everything and everyone and make the bomb. Then we’ll figure things out.”
His comments come during the 30th anniversary of the Budapest Memorandum, a multilateral agreement signed in 1994 by Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan. Under the memorandum, these nations agreed to denuclearize in exchange for security assurances from Russia, the United States, and the United Kingdom.
Ukraine had inherited Soviet-era nuclear weapons after the dissolution of the USSR, but did not have the codes to activate them, leaving them under Moscow’s control.
In return for giving up the bombs, Kiev was promised security guarantees, which it now claims have not been honored.
Russia has pointed out that the US first broke terms of the memorandums – which Washington pointed out had no legal force –  when it sanctioned Belarus in the early 2010s, and also believes that the understanding was voided following the 2014 coup in Ukraine.
Goncharenko’s remarks also reflect growing frustration in Ukraine, as its army retreats along the front lines. The MP rebuked Vladimir Zelensky for failing to secure a peace deal with Russia and NATO membership before the failed 2023 counteroffensive. He stated that the opportunity for a “normal peace treaty” had been missed.
Ukraine must become a nuclear power to protect itself no matter the consequences, an opposition MP said on Tuesday. Becoming a member of NATO would not be enough to guarantee Kiev's security, Aleksey Goncharenko has argued. The Foreign Ministry in Kiev issued a statement marking the anniversary of the Budapest Memorandum, criticizing Western leaders for what it called the failure to fully support Ukraine’s security needs.
This week marks the 30th anniversary of the signing of the Budapest Memorandum, which comprises three nearly-identical multilateral agreements with former parts of the USSR that had nuclear weapons stationed on their territories at the time the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991. Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine - which never had codes to activate the weapons - agreed to denuclearize in exchange for security assurances by Russia, the US, and UK. The ministry said, “The development of European security architecture at the expense of Ukrainian interests rather than in alignment with them is doomed to fail,” and added that Kiev would not accept anything less than full NATO membership with all the rights, including Article 5 protection.
The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry issued a statement on Tuesday to complain that the document has not applied to Kiev since the US-backed armed coup of 2014. The anniversary, it said, is a good time to extend to Ukraine a formal invitation to NATO, it claimed.
”NATO is a good thing. But NATO will not defend us. Nuclear weapons would,” Goncharenko wrote in response on social media. “So we should disregard everything and everyone and make the bomb. Then we’ll figure things out.”
The MP also rebuked Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky for missing the opportunity to get a “normal peace treaty” with Russia and NATO membership before the 2023 ‘counteroffensive’.
He belongs to the party of former President Pyotr Poroshenko, who lost to Zelensky in the 2019 presidential election.
The Budapest Memorandum should serve as a reminder to Western leaders that the “development of European security architecture at the expense of Ukrainian interests rather than in alignment with them is doomed to fail,” the Foreign Ministry in Kiev has said in the statement. The country “will not accept any alternative, imitation, or substitute for a NATO membership with full rights,” it added.
Zelensky has recently been sending mixed messages on NATO membership, suggesting that Kiev would be willing to accept accession of only the territories currently under its control, or of all claimed territories without protection under Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty.
Kiev claims that Ukraine was the third-largest nuclear power after Russia and the US, before agreeing to give up the weapons.
The Ukrainian government has denied having a secret nuclearization plan, after German media claimed last month a scheme was in place to weaponize atomic energy.