Although Russia has threatened to fire a nuclear missile at Ukraine, this is the first time that Zelenskyy has discussed building similar capabilities.
He said it had been a mistake for Ukraine to give up its nuclear missiles in 1994 after receiving security guarantees from Russia, Britain and the US, a view shared by most Ukrainians.
“Who gave up their nuclear weapons? All of them. Only Ukraine,” he said. “Who is fighting today? Ukraine.”
Kazakhstan and Belarus also surrendered nuclear weapons they inherited after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Ukraine has four nuclear power stations and German magazine Bild quoted a Ukrainian official specialising in weapons procurement who said that Kyiv could build a nuclear missile.
“We have the material, we have the knowledge. If the order is given, we will only need a few weeks to have the first bomb,” he said. “The West should think less about Russia’s red lines and more about our red lines.”
Sources in Ukraine agreed that, although there was an element of posturing and brinkmanship in the Ukrainian statements, they should still be taken seriously.
Nato has promised Ukraine membership of the Western military alliance but has not set a date, frustrating Zelenskyy, who said “an immediate invitation to Ukraine to join Nato would be decisive” in the war against Russia.
One security source in Ukraine told The Telegraph that Zelenskyy and his Government were getting desperate.
“There is an understanding that countries with nukes are treated differently,” the source said. “This is an existential conflict for Ukraine, something people in the West still don’t seem to get.”
Many analysts, though, said that, even if Ukraine had a nuclear missile, it was unlikely to act as a deterrent.
Instead, Pavel Podvig, a senior researcher at the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Studies, said a nuclear-armed Ukraine would simply increase the danger of nuclear war.
“How would a nuclear Ukraine deter nuclear Russia?” he asked. “How would nuclear weapons have helped Ukraine in Crimea? In eastern Ukraine? It’s not the magic wand people seem to think it is.”
Ankit Panda, of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a Washington-based think tank, said Zelenskyy talking about nuclear weapons would not be a “winning strategy” in his bargaining with Nato.
Zelenskyy was in Brussels to push for support for his “victory plan” for defeating Russia. Ukrainian officials have said the frontline is increasingly precarious and have pleaded for urgent help from the West.
The Kremlin’s forces have punched through Ukrainian positions in the Kursk region on Ukraine’s northeastern border and are advancing towards the city of Kupyansk in the northern sector of the main frontline.
“If we start now and follow the ‘victory plan’, we will be able to end this war no later than next year,” Zelenskyy said.
But Western officials have so far been lukewarm on Zelenskyy’s “victory plan”, complaining that it is a wishlist for more weapons and a plea for permission to fire Western missiles at targets inside Russia rather than a strategic masterstroke that will defeat Russia.
US President Joe Biden failed to back Zelenskyy’s plan when he was presented with it last month and Mark Rutte, the new Nato secretary-general, said he still had reservations.
It was a similar message from EU officials. “It’s as much as one can expect. The plan was presented to the leaders only this morning and much of it has very little to do with the EU,” an EU source told The Telegraph.
Intelligence sources have said this week that Russia is secretly training North Korean soldiers for deployment to the frontlines.
Initial estimates said 3000 North Korean soldiers would join the fight but, in his speech to the EU, Zelenskyy said Pyongyang had plans to deploy up to 10,000.
