Statements come after some reports that the United States was considering supplying nuclear weapons to Kiev before Biden steps down as president
Russian President Vladimir Putin said this Thursday that if Ukraine receives nuclear weapons it will use all the weapons it has at its disposal to attack it.
“If the country with which we are essentially at war now becomes a nuclear power, what will we do? In that case, we will use all, I want to emphasize this, precisely all means of destruction available in Russia. We will be attentive to every move,” defended Putin during a press conference in Astana, Kazakhstan.
The Russian president further added that “if someone officially transferred something, it would mean a violation of all the non-proliferation commitments” he had made.
The statements come a week after the New York Times reported that some Western officials, without naming names, said that US President Joe Biden would be considering providing nuclear weapons to Kiev before leaving office.
Putin on alert for “dirty bomb”
To journalists present in Astana, Putin stated that it would be impossible for Ukraine to produce a nuclear weapon, even if the country could be capable of manufacturing some type of “dirty bomb”, a type of conventional bomb that is mixed with radioactive material capable of spreading Contamination. If such a situation were to arise, Russia would also act accordingly, he assured.
In 1991, Ukraine inherited nuclear weapons from the former Soviet Union, but ended up giving up its possession after the signing of the Budapest Memorandum in 1994, in exchange for security guarantees from Russia, the United States and the United Kingdom.
Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly complained that Ukraine’s decision left the country without security, being one of the main reasons why it should be admitted to NATO, something Moscow strongly opposes.
