At the EU summit on Thursday, Mr Zelenskyy said that “either Ukraine will have nuclear weapons to protect itself, or we have to have some kind of alliance”.
Russian President Vladimir Putin. Photo: AP
“This is a dangerous provocation,” Putin said during a meeting with journalists from the BRICS group, warning that “any steps in this direction will be met with an appropriate reaction.”
“Currently, creating nuclear weapons is not so difficult,” Putin added. “I don’t know whether Ukraine is capable of doing it, but basically there are not many difficulties here.”
Mr Zelenskyy later clarified his remarks in a television interview on Friday, stressing that he wanted “people to understand clearly”.
Ukraine “has no intention of posing any threat to the world , nor does it intend to develop nuclear weapons,” he said.
Zelenskyy's initial comments on Thursday referred to a conversation he had with former US President Donald Trump about Ukraine giving up its nuclear arsenal after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Ukraine inherited the world's third-largest nuclear arsenal. Three years later, the country gave up its nuclear arsenal after receiving security guarantees from Russia and the United States.
These assurances, known as the Budapest Memorandum, required the signatories to respect the territorial integrity and independence of Ukraine and other post-Soviet republics.
Mr Zelensky also stressed that Ukraine was not seeking to restore the “nuclear umbrella” but only wanted to join NATO. “We are a peaceful country. NATO is better today than any weapons,” he said.
Hong Hanh (according to SCMP, AP)
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