President Vladimir Putin said Friday that Russia will not allow Ukraine to obtain nuclear weapons, after the Ukrainian leader said that, Since kyiv had given up its Soviet-era nuclear weapons, it had to join NATO.
Putin said any move by Ukraine to obtain nuclear weapons could not be hidden and would provoke an appropriate Russian response. “Russia will not allow this to happen, no matter what,” he told reporters.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Thursday that he had told US presidential candidate Donald Trump that Ukraine needed nuclear weapons or joining NATO for its security. pBut since it renounced nuclear weapons after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, entering NATO was the only way to deter Russia.
Zelensky later clarified that he had never said that Ukraine was preparing to build a nuclear weapon.“We do not manufacture nuclear weapons. Please do not transmit these messages,” he said.
Ukraine inherited nuclear weapons after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, but it voluntarily renounced them in the 90s in exchange for guarantees of its territorial integrity, an agreement that he claims Moscow breached by invading his territory.
