The Ukrainian President today dismissed allegations from the Kremlin regarding supposed plans by the United Kingdom and France to deliver nuclear weapons to Ukraine, attributing the claim to a Russian attempt to distract from the situation on the battlefield.
“Usually, when Russia fails to win on the battlefield, it starts looking for a nuclear weapon on Ukrainian territory. Unfortunately, there are no nuclear weapons in Ukraine,” said Volodymyr Zelensky, during a joint press conference in Kiev with Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, with whom he agreed to increase bilateral cooperation.
Read more about this topic: Four years of war: Russia accuses the UK and France of wanting to provide Ukraine with a nuclear weapon
Ukraine once possessed the world’s third-largest nuclear arsenal, which it renounced in December 1994 in exchange for a Russian promise to fully respect its territorial integrity. That promise, 20 years later, was broken with the annexation of the Crimea Peninsula and the armed conflict in Donbass in the east.
“Everyone knows the circumstances of why and thanks to whom this happened,” Zelensky added.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday, citing alleged intelligence obtained by Russian foreign intelligence services, that the UK and France “are actively working on supply routes” for nuclear weapons to Ukraine.
“This is a blatant violation of all norms and principles of international law” regarding nuclear non-proliferation, Peskov added. Official spokespeople for the UK and Ukraine denied Moscow’s allegations on Tuesday.
France responded sarcastically via its X (formerly Twitter) account, French Response, created by the French government to combat disinformation.
“Fifth year of the ‘three-day’ war. The FR-UK deterrent is the threat,” read the Paris authorities’ message, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s threat to take the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, in three days.
