Kremlin Calls Zelensky’s Nuclear Deterrence Talk ‘Madness’

The Kremlin slammed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s suggestion that nuclear weapons could help guarantee Ukraine’s security against another Russian invasion, calling the idea “bordering on madness,” Radio Mayak Telegram channel reported Wednesday.

“There is a nuclear non-proliferation regime,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told Russian Radio Mayak Telegram channel. “I would like to believe that, despite the shortcomings in the qualifications of the current generation of politicians in Europe, there is still some sober understanding of the absurdity and potential danger of discussing such a topic.”

Zelensky made the remark in an interview with British journalist Piers Morgan Tuesday, saying Ukraine might need to reacquire nuclear weapons were it not accepted into the NATO defensive alliance.

Ukraine gave up its nuclear arsenal under the 1994 Budapest Memorandum in exchange for security guarantees from partners, including Russia – a promise that Moscow later shattered, illegally annexing Crimea and invading Ukraine in 2014 and again in 2022.

A 1999 publication on nuclear disarmament, citing a White House fact sheet, said Ukraine was believed to have possessed 1,900 strategic nuclear weapons in January 1994 after the fall of the USSR a few years prior – an arsenal that made it the third-largest nuclear power in the world after the US and Russia.

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“After some more posturing and delay, the first strategic warheads were loaded on a special train in the last days of February and shipped out of Ukraine in early March 1994. By November 1994, Russia had taken 400 strategic nuclear warheads from Ukraine. By 1 June 1996 all strategic nuclear weapons had been removed from Ukraine,” reads the 1999 publication.

In November of 2024 there were rumors that the Biden administration could support a return of Ukraine’s nuclear capability as a form of deterrence against Russia continuing its invasion.

The rumors appeared following the publication of a New York Times article pertaining to the West’s options for helping Kyiv defend itself ahead of then President-elect Donald Trump’s return to office and the possibility that Trump might cut off American support.

In one paragraph, the publication said unnamed officials “suggested” that Biden could return the nukes Ukraine relinquished in the 1990s under the Budapest Memorandum.

“Several officials even suggested that Mr. Biden could return nuclear weapons to Ukraine that were taken from it after the fall of the Soviet Union. That would be an instant and enormous deterrent. But such a step would be complicated and have serious implications,” the report read.

However, Biden did not make the suggestion, nor does Washington possess the nukes Ukraine gave up in the 1990s, rendering that option impossible.