Volodymyr Zelensky said that the system of Western security guarantees for Ukraine should include, among other things, the transfer of nuclear weapons to the country.
He said international discussions often revolve around the argument that Ukraine cannot win the war because Russia is a nuclear power. Against that backdrop, he raised the question of what genuine security guarantees for Ukraine should actually look like.
“Everyone says Ukraine will not win this war because Russia is a nuclear state. So tell me, in your view, what security guarantees should Ukraine have? NATO? Nuclear weapons? Well then, that is exactly how they should speak to us: ‘We will give you NATO and we will give you nuclear weapons.’ But so far, no one has even raised the issue,” he said.
On March 27, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio called “a lie” Volodymyr Zelensky’s claim that Washington had allegedly demanded Kyiv withdraw its troops from Donbas in exchange for security guarantees. According to Rubio, the Ukrainian side was told something different: any such guarantees could only take effect after the war ends, because providing them while hostilities are ongoing would amount to the guarantor states becoming directly involved in the conflict. Rubio stressed that the issue was never tied to territorial concessions and that “Zelensky knows this is not true.”