Zelensky proposes rearming with nuclear weapons if Ukrainian membership in NATO is rejected
In a new interview with British journalist Piers Morgan, President Volodymyr Zelensky argued that nuclear weapons could be a sufficient security guarantee for Ukraine if the nation isn’t granted immediate NATO membership. Zelensky also reasoned that Russian troops should withdraw from every inch of Ukrainian territory if the alliance abandons its expansion plans (after which Kyiv would raise the issue of financial compensation for all its losses). Speaking through an interpreter, Zelensky told Morgan:
Will we be given nuclear weapons? Then, let them give us nuclear weapons. Will they give us the missiles in the quantities [needed to] stop Russia? I’m not sure of that, but I think it would help. Otherwise, what missiles can stop Russia’s nuclear missiles? That’s a rhetorical question. So, let’s do it the following way: Give us back nuclear arms. Give us missile systems. Partners, help us finance the one-million[-man] army, move your contingent on the parts of our state where we want the stability of the situation, so that the people have tranquility.
Later in the interview, Zelensky acknowledged that Ukraine lacks the means to liberate all occupied territories, saying that the West’s assistance has been “insufficient” to drive out Russian troops.
Responding to the Ukrainian president’s remarks about nuclear weapons, Russian Foreign Affairs Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova called Zelensky “a madman who sees the planet as a stage for his deranged fantasies.”
Ukrainian officials have repeatedly argued that NATO membership is Kyiv’s “only real security guarantee” against continued Russian aggression. Before returning to the White House last month, Donald Trump said he sympathized with Moscow’s opposition to NATO expansion into Ukraine. “Then Russia has somebody [NATO] right on their doorstep, and I could understand their feelings about that,” Trump said, ignoring the fact that the NATO member states already border Russia in Norway, the Baltics, Poland, and most recently Finland.
Ukraine turned over its Soviet nuclear weapons stockpiles under the Budapest Memorandum, signed in December 1994. The document — signed by Russia, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, and the United States — guaranteed Ukraine’s territorial integrity in exchange for giving up its nuclear arsenal.