Ukraine Could Rebuild Nuclear Arsenal after Clinton, Obama Disarmed It

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said his country needs NATO so it does not have to rely on nuclear weapons for protection, after former presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama helped disarm Kyiv.

This week saw Zelensky discuss how, 30 years ago, Ukraine agreed to give up the Soviet nuclear weapons stored in the country, when it signed the 1994 Budapest Memorandum in exchange for security assurances from Russia, the U.K. and the U.S.

At the European Council summit in Brussels on Thursday, Zelensky said: “Which of these major nuclear powers suffered? All of them? No. Ukraine (did).

“Who gave up nuclear weapons? All of them? No. Ukraine. Who is fighting today? Ukraine. Either Ukraine will have nuclear weapons and that will be our protection or we should have some sort of alliance. Apart from NATO, today we do not know any effective alliances.”

He added: “NATO countries are not at war. People are all alive in NATO countries. And thank God. That is why we choose NATO. Not nuclear weapons.”

The comments come along with Zelensky’s “victory plan,” which includes Ukraine securing NATO membership.

It is important to note that Zelensky later clarified at a press conference that Kyiv is “not building nuclear weapons.”

“What I meant is that today there is no stronger security guarantee for us besides NATO membership,” he said.

The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry (MFA) also put out a statement on Thursday, to refute a recent report from the German tabloid BILD that claimed Kyiv was closing in on plans to build a nuclear bomb.

Spokesperson Heorhii Tykhyi emphasized in the statement that Kyiv “remains a committed party” to the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, adding that Ukraine, which “has made the greatest contribution in history to international peace, security and nuclear non-proliferation, is now facing nuclear blackmail from the terrorist state of Russia.”

Newsweek has contacted the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense for comment.

Former President Bill Clinton was the leader of the U.S. when Ukraine signed the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, a landmark post-Cold War deal that saw around 1,900 nuclear warheads surrendered by Ukraine’s then-President Leonid Kravchuk.

In return, the U.K., the U.S. and Russia agreed to respect Ukraine’s sovereignty, which was violated in 2014, when Moscow annexed Crimea and again in February 2022, when Russian President Vladimir Putin began his “special military operation” in Ukraine.

Clinton backed the deal for multiple reasons, including its perceived contribution to global stability in a post-Soviet Europe, and in an effort to foster a more positive relationship between the U.S. and Russia.

But Clinton has since expressed regret about the deal, as he believes Russia would not have invaded Ukraine if the country still had nuclear weapons.

The 42nd president told Irish broadcaster RTE last year: “I feel a personal stake because I got them [Ukraine] to agree to give up their nuclear weapons. And none of them believe that Russia would have pulled this stunt if Ukraine still had their weapons.

“I knew that President Putin did not support the agreement [then-Russian] President [Boris] Yeltsin made never to interfere with Ukraine’s territorial boundaries—an agreement he made because he wanted Ukraine to give up their nuclear weapons.”

By the time Obama took office in 2009, Ukraine had already transferred its nuclear weapons to Russia and dismantled its nuclear infrastructure, as it was obligated to do under the Budapest Memorandum.

In 2010, during Obama’s presidency, Ukraine agreed to get rid of its stockpile of highly enriched uranium (HEU). While not weaponized at the time, this could have been used to build nuclear bombs.

During the 2012 Nuclear Security Summit, Ukraine said it had removed all its HEU, which was seen as an achievement under Obama’s Nuclear Security Summits, which aimed to create better nuclear security around the world.

Obama has never explicitly expressed regret the way Clinton has. In 2016, in an interview with The Atlantic, Obama said: “The fact is that Ukraine, which is a non-NATO country, is going to be vulnerable to military domination by Russia no matter what we do.”

He went on: “There are ways to deter, but it requires you to be very clear ahead of time about what is worth going to war for and what is not. Now, if there is somebody in this town who would claim that we would consider going to war with Russia over Crimea and eastern Ukraine, they should speak up and be very clear about it.

“The idea that talking tough or engaging in some military action that is tangential to that particular area is somehow going to influence the decision-making of Russia or China is contrary to all the evidence we have seen over the last 50 years.”

Newsweek has contacted teams for Clinton and Obama, via email, for comment.

The U.S. election is less than three weeks away and Ukraine is asking for NATO membership before President Joe Biden leaves office.

“Our idea is that giving Ukraine (an) invitation at this moment is a political signal,” Nataliia Galibarenko, Kyiv’s ambassador to NATO, told Reuters.

She said: “We sincerely believe that it can be part of the legacy of (the) current American administration.”

“If we will say that the invitation is there, for the Russian Federation, it would be like a final verdict—so that’s it, so you cannot raise the stakes using this topic anymore,” she added.

If Ukraine joins NATO, it will be part of the U.S.-led military alliance’s mutual defense pact, which sees an attack on one member as an attack on all.

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte has said NATO and Washington had decided to make Ukraine’s path to joining the alliance “irreversible” but it is unclear when this will take place.

“All of this is basically building that bridge to NATO membership in the future,” Rutte said.