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UKRAINE could develop a nuclear bomb within months if the US withdraws military aid under Donald Trump, it has been claimed.
A think tank paper shared with the nation’s deputy defence minister claims that Ukraine is capable of building a basic device with similar technology to that used in the 1945 bombing of Nagasaki.
EPA
apIt comes after two of Trump’s former national security chiefs wrote in a paper in May that the United States should only continue supplying weapons to Ukraine if Kyiv enters peace talks with Russia.
During his presidential campaign, Trump said he could end the war between the two nations “in a day”.
And the President-elect’s adviser Bryan Lanza recently told the BBC that the new administration would ask Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for his version of a “realistic vision for peace”.
He also previously said that Ukraine would have to give up Crimea.
Amid uncertainty over the embattled nation’s future, the Centre for Army, Conversion and Disarmament Studies – an influential Ukrainian think tank – has published a paper outlining the nuclear option.
Their report claims that Ukraine is capable of building a basic device from plutonium using similar technology to that used by the US‘ “Fat Man” bomb, which was dropped on Nagasaki in 1945.
The paper has been shared with Ukraine’s deputy defence minister.
The country would have to rely on plutonium taken from spent fuel rods from nuclear reactors, lacking the time necessary to construct large facilities needed to enrich uranium, The Times reports.
Ukraine still has nine working reactions and a large amount of nuclear experts.
The think tank’s report claims: “The weight of reactor plutonium available to Ukraine can be estimated at seven tons.”
It continues: “A significant nuclear weapons arsenal would require much less material.”
It later adds: “The amount of material is sufficient for hundreds of warheads with a tactical yield of several kilotons.”
The strength of such a bomb would be around one tenth that of the “Fat Man”, the authors write.
Oleksii Yizhak, the report’s author, said: “That would be enough to destroy an entire Russian airbase or concentrated military, industrial or logistics installations.”
Ukrainian officials have previously denied that Kyiv is considering nuclear armament.
The paper is set to be presented on Wednesday at a conference, which will likely be attended by Ukraine’s ministers for defence, it is understood.
It is not endorsed by the Ukraine government.
It comes after leaked videos showed North Korean soldiers training in Russia as Vladimir Putin readied 50,000 troops to claw back Kursk from Ukraine.
The footage showed just how close the two countries are – with Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un also signing a new military pact.
The footage, made up of three short clips, was released by a Ukrainian journalist.
It appears to show North Korean troops being trained by their counterparts in speaking Russian and using Vlad’s equipment.
ap
AFP
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English (US)