Ukraine has intellectual, organizational and financial capabilities to develop and manufacture its own nuclear weapons, a former Ukrainian envoy to NATO, Major General Petro Garashchuk claimed in an interview with a television channel.
“I’ll say it once more. We have the capability to develop and produce our own nuclear weapons,” Garashchuk stated.
Garashchuk also claimed that Kyiv has the capability to build full-fledged nuclear warheads for missiles and not just nuclear bombs.
Speaking on a security briefing on the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov region last Thursday, Yelchenko said, “Russia has more than doubled its military personnel from 12,500 to over 28,000, and up to 31,500 probably, according to the recent estimations. Russian military in Crimea got tanks and anti-aircraft systems, which were not present there before, up to six-seven times more combat vehicles, artillery systems, combat aircraft and is preparing for the complete re-nuclearization of Crimea.”
“Currently, there is no such production facility in the world, such as the one which was built in the former USSR and which is now in independent Ukraine, located in the city of Dnipro (former Dnipropetrovsk) that can produce these kinds of intercontinental ballistic missiles. Neither the United States, nor Russia, nor China have produced a missile named Satan, General was quoted as saying by Uawire Sunday.
At the same time, in the current situation, Ukraine does not have to worry about international sanctions when creating these nuclear weapons, concluded Garashchuk.
The Budapest Memorandum, signed on December 5th, 1994 by the leaders of Ukraine, Russia, the United States, and Britain, practically became a document that deprived Kyiv of nuclear weapons, after which Ukraine’s accession to the Non-Proliferation Treaty began.
