General's bluff: Ukrainian "Servants of the People" want to get their atomic bomb

Gennady Charodeev

" NI " called the director of the Kiev Center for Political Studies and Conflictology Mikhail Pogrebinsky and asked him to comment on General Smeshko's statement.

“I know him well,” said the Ukrainian political scientist. - Do not take seriously the words of this figure. He understands nothing at all about politics. And he spoke about this, apparently, with one goal - to strengthen his electoral positions. Nevertheless, the SBU general cannot but understand that an attempt to make Ukraine a nuclear power will turn the country into a pariah. One thing is certain - the Americans do not need the nuclear problem in Ukraine. After all, we will have to come out with a unified position with Russia. So, it will not work to make Ukraine another nuclear power. But you can talk. You can also earn points from people who believe that the West does little to help Kiev. To frighten that the Ukrainians will soon show the world "Kuzkin's mother" is intended for fools, "Mikhail Pogrebinsky said to" NI ".

Nevertheless, the expert has no doubts: before making such statements in the media, General Smeshko went upstairs. On the air of the Ukraine 24 TV channel, he gave vent to emotions and clearly overdid it: "It was Ukraine," who gave the world Korolev, "made a significant contribution to the development of nuclear weapons in the USSR and to the disarmament process." To restore the arsenals of nuclear weapons, Smeshko said, the country has "scientific potential and all the technical capabilities." To return the nuclear status, only the political will of the current leadership of Ukraine is needed, he is sure.

“ We sincerely defend the entire Western world, defend democracy, why does Western democracy not reciprocate?” - the general was indignant.

“Ukraine is the cornerstone of European politics. Either the state will receive guarantees from nuclear states, or forget about arms reduction and non-proliferation, ”Smeshko threatened.

The former chief of the SBU in all seriousness told the viewers of the popular channel that Ukraine "from the most ancient times was a metropolis, and the rest of the lands of Rus adjoined it and enjoyed protection."

It is interesting that on the eve of the head of the parliamentary faction "Servant of the People" David Arahamia said that Kiev made a fatal mistake, getting rid of nuclear weapons. In his opinion, if Ukraine had retained the status of a nuclear state, they would have talked to it “in a different way and would have given money for service”.

The Ukrainians have not forgotten the words of their first President Leonid Kuchma , who publicly admitted that Kiev had to eliminate the country's nuclear status in due time due to the threat of US sanctions. The President of Russia also took a very tough position in those days. In the early 1990s, Boris Yeltsin demanded to urgently transfer to Moscow all the warheads remaining in Ukraine.

At the same time, Kuchma said that 45 billion dollars were required to maintain the nuclear arsenal every year. Ukraine did not and does not have such money. Therefore, according to the ex-president, the statements of some Ukrainian politicians about the need to restore nuclear status are nonsense.

At the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine possessed the world's third nuclear arsenal. 900 nuclear warheads, 165 intercontinental ballistic missiles, as well as significant stocks of tactical atomic weapons, hundreds of long-range supersonic cruise missiles and strategic aircraft remained on the country's territory.

In 1994, Ukraine, Russia, the United States, France and Great Britain signed the Budapest Memorandum, according to which Kiev voluntarily renounced the nuclear potential inherited from the USSR in exchange for security guarantees. Kiev joined the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, and also destroyed its own nuclear potential. Now Ukrainian politicians claim that the West has deceived Kiev.

Proposals to restore the status of a nuclear power are constantly being heard in Ukraine. By the way, a significant part of politicians believe that Kiev should not have succumbed to pressure from Washington and Moscow, that it should have demanded billions of dollars in compensation for the elimination of missiles. The status of a nuclear power would have prevented "Russian aggression" in 2014. Such rhetoric was adhered to by supporters of the Poroshenko regime and the current associates of President Zelensky.

In March 2014, Russian President Vladimir Putin , responding to a Reuters reporter's remark on the Budapest Memorandum, said that a real revolution had taken place in Ukraine and that he agreed with experts observing the emergence of a new state in this territory. “And we didn’t sign any binding documents with this state,” Putin concluded.

In addition, the Budapest Memorandum has not been ratified by the legislatures of any of the signatory countries.

By overthrowing President Viktor Yanukovych , Maidan crossed out the basic law of Ukraine. By refusing to pay the debts Yanukovych took from Russia, Kiev confirmed Putin's logic: modern Ukraine does not consider itself the legal successor of the Yanukovych regime. And if so, then the Russian president is absolutely right: the Budapest memorandum lost its force with the disappearance of the state entity to which it was dedicated.

“Threats about Ukraine's withdrawal from the Budapest Memorandum and the creation of its own nuclear weapons are another bluff of the Kiev authorities,” Vladimir Batyuk , Chief Researcher at the Institute of the USA and Canada of the Russian Academy of Sciences , told NI. - Ukraine, without looking back at the United States, is not capable of not taking harsh actions, not creating an atomic bomb . In Soviet times, its components were produced at hundreds of enterprises in the country in close cooperation with each other. And in today's Ukraine, there is a great shortage of conventional ammunition. And here we are talking about nuclear weapons! Ukraine does not have either the technological or financial capabilities to solve its such ambitious tasks.