[dabigv13]

That's not really what he said. He said they are choosing NATO, though you could read it as an implicit threat to pursue nuclear weapons if they aren't admitted to NATO.

Ukraine would need significant time and resources to build a nuclear weapon. They have nuclear facilities but they don't have weapons grade fissile material and they don't have enrichment facilities to obtain it.

Would probably be years, and would be hard to keep secret, but they probably are better positioned than most non-nuclear states to obtain them.

From a WSJ reporter who was there for the speech-

https://x.com/laurnorman/status/1846935680816935283

I do think a Ukrainian loss to Russia would be a big proliferation nightmare, otherwise what recourse do small states have to larger irredentist neighbors. From Ukraine's perspective, seeking a nuclear deterrent is a perfectly sane and logical goal, IF they could do it in secret and do it quickly. Otherwise if Russia suspected Ukraine was close to obtaining a nuclear weapon during this conflict I would expect Russia would use their nuclear weapons first, and they have a lot of them.

[dabigv13]

That's not really what he said. He said they are choosing NATO, though you could read it as an implicit threat to pursue nuclear weapons if they aren't admitted to NATO.

Ukraine would need significant time and resources to build a nuclear weapon. They have nuclear facilities but they don't have weapons grade fissile material and they don't have enrichment facilities to obtain it.

Would probably be years, and would be hard to keep secret, but they probably are better positioned than most non-nuclear states to obtain them.

From a WSJ reporter who was there for the speech-

https://x.com/laurnorman/status/1846935680816935283

I do think a Ukrainian loss to Russia would be a big proliferation nightmare, otherwise what recourse do small states have to larger irredentist neighbors. From Ukraine's perspective, seeking a nuclear deterrent is a perfectly sane and logical goal, IF they could do it in secret and do it quickly. Otherwise if Russia suspected Ukraine was close to obtaining a nuclear weapon during this conflict I would expect Russia would use their nuclear weapons first, and they have a lot of them.