Original article (in Bosnian) was published on 16/03/2022
Articles from several websites feature claims that Ukraine was trying to develop nuclear weapons, attributed to an anonymous representative of “one of Russia’s competent departments”. All available data clearly indicate that this did not happen.
On March 6, 2022, the website Sputnik Serbia published an article entitled:
Ukraine could have become a nuclear state in the near future
The article conveys the statements given to Sputnik by an unnamed Russian source, signed only as “a representative of one of the competent departments of Russia”.
In the introductory part of the article, an anonymous source refers to the statement of the President of Ukraine that the country intends to join the nuclear forces.
The statement of President Volodymyr Zelensky in Munich that Ukraine intends to join the nuclear forces was not accidental – it could happen in the near future, a representative of one of the competent departments in Russia told Sputnik.
The article then cites the same source, who states that the Ukrainian scientific community has enough competencies to assemble “devices of both ‘implosive’ and ‘cannon’ type”. The same source then claims that Kyiv could have acquired technology from the West to create nuclear weapons.
According to him, Kyiv could secretly procure technology for centrifugal uranium enrichment and laser isotope separation in the West.
“By implementing programs in both the nuclear and missile spheres for more than two decades, Ukraine has consistently moved towards creating all the necessary conditions for making its own nuclear weapons”, he said.
As he said, “significant results” were achieved in modeling nuclear chain reactions, isolation of isotopes of fissile materials, and the field of studying the metallurgy of nuclear materials.
“According to the conclusion of the Western experts, the Kiev regime was the closest to making a nuclear explosive device based on plutonium by its secret isolation from the spent nuclear fuel that was stored on the territory of the country. Ukrainian experts could make such a device within a few months. Kyiv’s extremely dangerous project – ‘nuclear Ukraine’ could become a reality in the very near future”, the source said.
On the same day, another article on the alleged development of nuclear weapons in Ukraine was published on the website of Sputnik Serbia.
The article was published with the following title:
Ukraine gets plutonium for nuclear weapons from abroad: it is believed that the US is involved
In this article, just like in the previous one, the source is anonymous, and it is only stated that he is a “representative of one of the competent departments of Russia”.
Ukraine once received plutonium of the required quality from abroad to produce nuclear weapons, and there is reason to believe that this did not happen without the participation of the United States, a representative of one of Russia’s competent departments told Sputnik.
The same source claims that the Scientific Center of the Institute in Kharkiv played a key role in the alleged construction of the “nuclear explosive device” and that the “competent Russian authorities” have information about other institutions from Ukraine that participated in this endeavor.
According to him, the key role in making a nuclear explosive device was assigned to the National Science Center of the Institute of Physics and Technology in Kharkiv.
“The experimental base that exists there enables a wide range of research to be conducted on the study of nuclear materials. At the same time, the department for neutron physics at the National Center made calculations of the criticality of nuclear reactors, which are also applicable in the field of nuclear weapons”, the source estimates.
He adds that specialized structures of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, specifically the Institute for Nuclear Research and the Institute of Organic Chemistry from Kyiv, assisted the National Center in Kharkiv in developing methods for the separation of isotopes of nuclear materials.
According to the information of the competent Russian authorities, the Institute for Safety Problems of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, the State Scientific and Technical Center for Nuclear Safety and Radiation from Kyiv and the Institute for Condensed Matter Physics from Lviv also took part in the works.
The article reiterates the claim that “Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said at the Munich Security Conference that there is a possibility that Kyiv will revise the obligations from the Budapest Memorandum which envisages the renunciation of nuclear weapons in exchange for security guarantees”.
The article was then published by Vecernje novosti, In4S, Inter magazin, Pravda, Vaseljenska, and Princip news.
What are the facts?
Volodymyr Zelensky, the current president of Ukraine, did not state that “Ukraine intends to join the nuclear forces” at the security conference in Munich, held on February 18, 2022.
A recording of the speech of the Ukrainian president is available here, and the Ukrainian website The Kyiv Independent also published a transcript of the entire speech in English. In an analysis published on March 1, 2022, Faktograf, our partner website from Croatia, wrote about the claim suggesting that Zelensky said in Munich that Ukraine intends to become a nuclear power again. Faktograf published a transcript of the speech.
“Ukraine has received security guarantees to give up the world’s third-largest nuclear capacity. We don’t have those weapons. We have no security. We also do not have a part of the territory of our country that is larger than the territory of Switzerland, the Netherlands or Belgium. And most importantly, we do not have millions of our fellow citizens. We don’t have any of that. Therefore, we still have something; we have the right to demand a waiver of the policy of concessions to ensure security and peace guarantees.
Since 2014, Ukraine has tried three times to convene consultations with the countries guaranteeing the Budapest Memorandum. We failed three times. Today, Ukraine will do it for the fourth time. I will do this for the first time as president. But both me and Ukraine are doing it for the last time. I will start consultations on the framework of the Budapest Memorandum. The Minister of Foreign Affairs was given the task of convening them. If the consultations do not occur again or if their result does not guarantee security for our country, Ukraine will have every right to believe that the Budapest Memorandum is not valid and that the decisions from 1994 are questionable.
I also propose convening a summit of permanent members of the UN Security Council in the coming weeks, with the participation of Ukraine, Germany and Turkey, to address security challenges in Europe and develop new, effective security guarantees for Ukraine. We need guarantees immediately because as long as we are not a member of NATO, we are actually in a gray zone, in a security vacuum.
What else can we do now? Continue to support Ukraine and its defense capabilities. Provide Ukraine with a clear European perspective, support tools available to candidate countries and a clear and comprehensive timeframe for joining NATO. You can support the transformation of our country, establish a fund for stability and reconstruction of Ukraine, launch a program to supply Ukraine with the latest weapons, machinery and equipment for our army, an army that protects the whole of Europe. You can develop an effective package of preventive sanctions to discourage aggression. You can guarantee Ukraine’s energy security, ensure its integration into the EU energy market when Nord Stream 2 is used as a weapon”.
It is clear from the speech transcript that Zelensky did not state that “Ukraine intends to join the nuclear forces”. He also did not explicitly state that there is a “possibility that Kyiv will revise the obligations from the Budapest Memorandum which envisages the renunciation of nuclear weapons in exchange for security guarantees”, as stated in another analyzed article published by Sputnik.
In its analysis, Faktograf recalls that the Budapest Memorandum is a 1994 agreement by which Ukraine agreed to give up the nuclear arsenal inherited after the collapse of the USSR.
The Budapest Memorandum to which Zelensky refers is the 1994 agreement, by which Ukraine agreed to give up the nuclear arsenal inherited after the collapse of the USSR. The agreement’s guarantors are Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States, and the same security guarantees as Ukraine were given to Belarus and Kazakhstan at the time.
Ukraine’s nuclear arsenal has thus come under Russian control. In turn, Ukrainians are guaranteed that their independence and sovereignty within existing borders will be respected, that signatories to the agreement will refrain from threatening or using force against Ukraine, that they will refrain from economic pressure, to refrain from using nuclear weapons in Ukraine and to seek immediate action from the UN Security Council if Ukraine becomes a victim of aggression or the threat of nuclear weapons.
As for the allegations that Ukraine received plutonium for weapons from abroad and that the key role in making a nuclear explosive device was assigned to the National Science Center of the Institute of Physics and Technology in Kharkiv, it is essential to point out that the source is anonymous and claims are uncovered.
Ukraine did inherit nuclear weapons after the collapse of the USSR, but all its arsenal was transferred to Russia within the framework of the agreement between these countries, which the Budapest Memorandum also defines.
Details on the history of inherited nuclear infrastructure are available on The Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) website, a global security organization focused on reducing nuclear and biological threats to humanity. NTI states:
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine inherited a significant nuclear weapon infrastructure. The sudden possession of the world’s third-largest nuclear arsenal left this newly independent country to make a strategic decision on whether to return weapons to Russia or to become a nuclear-weapon state on its own. In the end, Ukraine, together with Kazakhstan and Belarus, decided to return its weapons and delivery systems to Russia and to join the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) as a state that does not have nuclear weapons.
In addition, all three countries signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I) and helped facilitate the transfer of all strategic and tactical nuclear warheads from their territories, as well as the dismantling and/or removal of all their associated launch systems and delivery vehicles. Kyiv returned all chemical weapons to Russia for elimination, and it is not known that it ever possessed biological weapons, although it may have been involved in the production of Soviet biological agents when it was part of the Soviet Union. Ukraine is a member of all major non-proliferation agreements and regimes. (…)
In the analysis “Fake: Ukraine was preparing to create its own nuclear weapons”, published by the Ukrainian fact-checking site Stop Fake on March 6, 2022, it is stated that leading Russian media published claims that Ukraine was preparing to create its nuclear weapons, although there is no evidence for such claims.
As Stop Fake’s text reveals, the National Science Center of the Institute of Physics and Technology in Kharkiv, which according to Sputnik, played a key role in making the nuclear explosive device, had highly enriched uranium sufficient for scientific needs, but not for making nuclear weapons.
A corresponding member of NASU, Ivan Karnaukhov, who holds a PhD in Physical and Mathematical Sciences, stated in 2012 that the Science Center leaves the required amount of HEU (highly enriched uranium) for scientific purposes, but much less than is needed for the production of nuclear weapons… )
In addition, the same analysis states that The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has no information that Ukraine is developing nuclear weapons.
IAEA chief Rafael Grossi has denied Russia’s accusations against Ukraine of alleged attempts by Ukrainians to develop nuclear weapons.
“This question is very clear to us; we do not have any information that would call into question the fulfillment of Ukraine’s non-proliferation obligations”, said Grossi (…)
On its official website, IAEA has never published any doubts that Ukraine is working on the development of nuclear weapons.
The allegations from both analyzed articles published by Sputnik, claiming that Kyiv could “secretly procure technology for centrifugal uranium enrichment and laser isotope separation from the West” and that “Ukraine once received plutonium from abroad to make nuclear weapons” have no basis in the facts available.
As we have stated, all official sources indicate that Ukraine has not worked on developing nuclear weapons, following the 1994 agreement, according to which it renounces such options in exchange for Russian, American and British guarantees that it will respect Ukrainian independence and sovereignty within the existing borders.
These allegations, which Sputnik attributes to an anonymous source from “one of the competent departments of Russia”, belong to the domain of narratives that justify Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Given all the facts, the claim that Kyiv had a project “nuclear Ukraine”, i.e., that it developed an atomic bomb, which could be realized in the near future, as well as that Ukraine received plutonium from abroad to make nuclear weapons, we assess as fake news. There is no evidence to prove the accuracy of these allegations, and all available and relevant sources indicate that Ukraine did not plan to develop nuclear weapons.
We also evaluate the allegations as a conspiracy theory since they were presented as a “plan of Ukraine” without any arguments and are part of the Russian narrative that tries to justify the invasion of this country to Ukraine.
We also consider the claim from the article published on Sputnik Serbia, suggesting that Zelensky stated in Munich that “Ukraine intends to join the nuclear forces”, to be fake news, since the Ukrainian president said that Ukraine, despite all failed attempts, will try for the fourth time to convene consultations with the countries that are guarantors of the Budapest Memorandum.
All subsequent publications of these claims are assessed as the distribution of fake news and conspiracy theory.