- Ukraine gave up its nuclear arsenal in 1996 following the Soviet Union’s collapse
- But Kyiv could still manufacture rudimentary nuclear weapons using plutonium
- Follow DailyMail.com’s presidential election live blog for all the latest news and updates
Ukraine has enough plutonium to construct hundreds of nuclear warheads for rudimentary bombs akin to the first atomic weapons dropped on Japan by the US in 1945, a new report has revealed.
A briefing paper prepared for Ukraine’s Defence Ministry said Kyiv could develop small dirty bombs within months if Donald Trump pulls US military aid.
Despite giving up its nuclear arsenal in 1996, Kyiv is still in control of nine operational reactors and has significant expertise on how to build the weapons.
Ukraine does not have the time or resources to run the facilities required to enrich uranium needed for high-yield nuclear weapons amid the ongoing war.
But Oleksii Yizhak, head of department at Ukraine’s National Institute for Strategic Studies and author of the paper, said Kyiv could extract plutonium from its spent fuel rods at nuclear power plants to create a significant arsenal of dirty warheads.
‘The amount of material is sufficient for hundreds of warheads with a tactical yield of several kilotons,’ Yizhak concluded.
‘That would be enough to destroy an entire Russian airbase or concentrated military, industrial or logistics installations.’
The weapon would use similar technology to the nuclear bomb dropped on Nagasaki in 1945, the report stated, with each bomb having roughly one tenth of the power of the Fat Man.
The concerning revelation comes after Trump reportedly backed the shock ultimatum President Volodymyr Zelensky gave NATO last month in which he suggested Ukraine would need to become a nuclear power if it is not granted a NATO membership.
Zelensky later clarified he had meant there was no alternative security guarantee and Kyiv has since denied they are considering building a nuclear bomb.
According to The Times, the briefing paper prepared for the Ministry of Defence reads: ‘Creating a simple atomic bomb, as the United States did within the framework of the Manhattan Project, would not be a difficult task 80 years later.’
‘The weight of reactor plutonium available to Ukraine can be estimated at seven tons… A significant nuclear weapons arsenal would require much less material,’ it continued.
President-elect Trump has famously pledged to end the Russia-Ukraine war within a day of becoming president and has boasted of his ‘very good relationship’ with President Putin.
He has also said the invasion would never have happened if he had been in the White House and has criticised Biden’s level of support for Ukraine, despite President Zelensky being adamantly against relinquishing territory to Russia.
Zelensky last month reportedly told NATO to let his country join the group or it will get nuclear weapons in a shock ultimatum that was allegedly backed by Trump.
The leader, 46, declared his bombshell proposal at the EU summit in Brussels – stating either NATO quickly accepts Ukraine into its alliance, or it will once again become a nuclear power, German newspaper Bild reported.
Zelensky had reportedly planned to present what is being dubbed his ‘victory plan’ to the heads of state and government of the European Union, but instead made the dramatic announcement to stunned reporters.
Speaking to the former American President Donald Trump, 78, some weeks ago, the Ukrainian leader declared: ‘Either Ukraine will have nuclear weapons, and then they will be our defence.
‘Or we will have to enter into some kind of alliance. Apart from NATO, we do not know of any effective alliances today.’
He said Trump had agreed with his proposal before he made the statement at the summit, insisting that a membership to NATO would provide his country with the ultimate security guarantee to protect it from Russia.
Last week it emerged that Trump could propose a 800-mile demilitarised zone between Russia and Ukraine as part of a plan to end the war early.
The plans, which were outlined by three Trump staffers, would involve the zone being policed by British and European troops.
It would mean that Russia would keep its territorial gains made in Ukraine with the current border frozen in place. Kyiv would also have to assure that it would not join NATO for 20 years.
Under the plans the US would arm Ukraine in return for preventing Russia from restarting the war. However, responsibility for manning and financing the buffer zone would fall solely on Ukraine’s European allies.
‘We can do training and other support but the barrel of the gun is going to be European,’ a member of Trump’s team told the Wall Street Journal.
‘We are not sending American men and women to uphold peace in Ukraine. And we are not paying for it. Get the Poles, Germans, British and French to do it.’
Many analysts have warned that Trump is indeed likely to reduce US military aid to Ukraine and force Kyiv’s European partners to shoulder a huge burden to maintain an adequate supply of arms – a move that would certainly pile pressure on Zelensky to consider a negotiated settlement.
‘Trump does have a legitimate point about European allies having underperformed in defence and over-relied on Uncle Sam to protect them for too long, and this is a huge wake-up call to the West,’ Dr Russell Foster, Senior Lecturer in British and International Politics at King’s College London, told MailOnline.
‘But Europe, Canada, and Australasia have let their defence spending stagnate for so long, they have nowhere near the industrial base and military infrastructure to help defend Ukraine and themselves from further aggression without American help.
‘We are likely to see major calls for defence spending and investment across NATO – but this will take years to build up and be hugely expensive at a time of economic stagnation. The future of Western defence is now looking very bleak.’
