Ukraine, together with European countries, could create its own nuclear weapons for deterrence against Russia. This was stated by Vladimir Horbulin, founder of Ukraine’s rocket and space industry and vice president of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, in an interview with the BBC.
Eighty-six-year-old Horbulin is considered the father of the rocket and space industry of independent Ukraine and one of the authors of the foreign policy principles that Kyiv followed after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
He was the first-ever Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, serving from 1994 to 1999 during Leonid Kuchma’s first presidential term, and was tasked with revitalizing the country’s defense industry, military, and space sector.
Many of the most important decisions during that period were made with Horbulin’s direct involvement. He remained prominent in Ukrainian politics later on, serving as a strategic advisor to Presidents Viktor Yushchenko, Oleksandr Turchynov, and Petro Poroshenko, and also chaired the supervisory board of the Ukroboronprom concern by presidential decree of Volodymyr Zelensky.
“We need to find allied bridges so that Ukraine can engage in its own [nuclear armament]. I believe that by joining forces with some European country, we can try to take such a step,” he said, responding to a journalist’s question about the possibility of Ukraine restoring its nuclear arsenal, which the country gave up when signing the Budapest Memorandum.
Horbulin noted that Western European countries “constantly feel threatened by the Russian Federation.
”As an example, Poland, whose Prime Minister Donald Tusk previously stated the need for the republic to acquire nuclear weapons. Ukraine has the scientific schools and relevant developments necessary to create such weapons," Horbulin added.
His view was supported by Ukrainian weapons expert and director of the Center for Army, Conversion, and Disarmament Studies, Valentyn Badrak. He noted that if Ukraine creates its own nuclear weapons, it would use them as a deterrent, while “we will fight with conventional weapons.”
“But it’s not just ‘Ukraine will make nuclear weapons.’ No, not like that. Ukraine will do this together with countries in a united club. For example, Ukraine, Britain, Poland, possibly the Baltic countries, which feel an increased threat [from Russia]. Such a club could create this weapon and have the ability to extend the security zone to the whole of Europe,” the expert emphasized.
In Ukraine’s case, this could mean “fourth-generation nuclear weapons,” Badrak believes. The armament might not be “some strategic missile,” but, for example, a bomb similar to the American thermonuclear B61 warhead, he noted.
