It has been claimed that Ukraine is months away from developing a basic nuclear bomb with one tenth of the power of the “Fat Man” nuclear bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki in 1945 by the US.
The Times reported that the Centre for Army, Conversion and Disarmament Studies which is a Ukrainian think tank has suggested in a research paper said it will “not [be] difficult” for Kyiv to build this type of bomb should Donald Trump stop providing military aid.
The think tank’s report says, “The weight of reactor plutonium available to Ukraine can be estimated at seven tons.
“A significant nuclear weapons arsenal would require much less material.”
“Creating a simple atomic bomb, as the United States did during the Manhattan Project, would not be a difficult task 80 years later,” the report also reads.
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It later added, “The amount of material is sufficient for hundreds of warheads with a tactical yield of several kilotons.”
Oleksii Yizhak, the report’s author, said, “That would be enough to destroy an entire Russian airbase or concentrated military, industrial or logistics installations.”
Valentyn Badrak, director of the think tank, added, “You need to understand we face an existential challenge.
“If the Russians take Ukraine, millions of Ukrainians will be killed under occupation.
“There are millions of us who would rather face death than go to the gulags.”
Last month President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Ukraine will build nuclear weapons if they cannot join NATO.
German publication Bild reported that Kyiv is seriously considering to now replenish their nuclear weapons stocks after they gave them up.
Bild said that it could take Ukraine a matter of weeks to build their first nuclear weapon as they have all the resources and talent to do so.
President Zelensky told officials in Brussels revealing his Victory Plan that if they cannot join the alliance then Ukraine will arm themselves with nuclear weapons, he said in October.
He told the EU summit, “What is the solution? Either Ukraine gets nuclear weapons, or we must joint some alliance. We do not know any viable alliances except NATO today.
“Who gave up their nuclear weapons? Was it everyone? No, only Ukraine did. Who’s fighting today? Ukraine.”
He added, “If Ukraine does not strengthen now, Russia will strengthen next year. And we must speak honestly – Ukrainians and all our partners – if we do not strengthen now, Putin will have time to strengthen next year so that he will throw diplomacy aside forever.
“Russia must lose the war against Ukraine. And this is not a ‘freeze.’ We must implement the Victory Plan to force Russia to be at the Peace Summit and be ready to end the war.”
However, Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry have denied reports that Kyiv is planning to develop a nuclear weapon.
Foreign Ministry spokesperson Heorhii Tykhyi said, “Ukraine is committed to the NPT (the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons); we do not possess, develop, or intend to acquire nuclear weapons.
Ukraine works closely with the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) and is fully transparent to its monitoring, which rules out the use of nuclear materials for military purposes.
