LONDON, October 18. /TASS/. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky said that nuclear weapons were the only alternative to Kiev’s accession to NATO because of the West’s unwillingness to accept his plan to resolve the conflict, the Daily Telegraph writes.
According to Ukrainian security sources, the Kiev authorities are getting desperate because the West is unprepared to allow Ukraine to join NATO. The newspaper points out that Western officials have been lukewarm on Zelensky’s "victory plan," saying that it was a wishlist for more weapons rather than a deep strategic masterstroke.
"Sources in Ukraine agreed that although there was an element of posturing and brinkmanship in the Ukrainian statements, they should still be taken seriously," the Daily Telegraph wires. "This is an existential conflict for Ukraine, something people in the West still don’t seem to get," a Ukrainian source told the paper.
Experts, however, doubt that nuclear weapons could be a deterrence tool. "How would a nuclear Ukraine deter nuclear Russia?" Pavel Podvig, a senior researcher at the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Studies, said. "How would nuclear weapons have helped Ukraine in Crimea? In eastern Ukraine? It’s not the magic wand people seem to think it is," he added.
Ankit Panda of the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said that Zelensky talking about nuclear weapons would not be a "winning strategy" in talks about Ukraine’s NATO membership.
Zelensky said at a press conference in Brussels on Thursday that Kiev’s possession of nuclear weapons was the only alternative to its NATO accession. Germany’s Bild newspaper reported, citing a source, that the Ukrainian authorities were seriously considering the possibility of rebuilding the country’s nuclear weapons stockpile. Zelensky said later at a joint press conference with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte that Kiev had no plans to create nuclear weapons.
On October 16, Zelensky presented his plan to resolve the conflict with Russia to the Verkhovna Rada (Ukraine’s parliament). The plan suggests that Kiev should immediately be invited to join NATO, be provided with more military aid, hit targets inside Russia with long-range weapons and be able to use European air defenses to protect the country’s territory. The plan also calls for the creation of "a non-nuclear strategic deterrence package" in Ukraine, which involves the deployment of Western missiles to Ukraine, and the country’s post-conflict reconstruction with assistance from Western nations.
Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova slammed Zelensky’s ideas as a set of meaningless slogans. She blamed him for pushing NATO towards a direct conflict with Russia.