Could Ukraine Develop A Nuclear Bomb That Halts Russia's Invasion?

Forbes

a day ago

After voluntarily giving up its nuclear weapons, Ukraine was invaded by Russia, creator of the most ... More powerful hydrogen bomb ever, shown here. Photo: Ulf Mauder/dpa (Photo by Ulf Mauder/picture alliance via Getty Images)
After President Volodymyr Zelensky mused that only by joining NATO—or by acquiring nuclear warheads—could he freeze Russia's lightning war against Ukraine, a global expert on atomic arms conducted a fascinating thought experiment.
Could the besieged democracy actually produce a nuclear bomb and the missiles capable of delivering that all-powerful explosive across Ukraine's border, able to reach the launch pads of Russia's blitz?
If Ukraine succeeded with its own version of the Manhattan Project, could that advance freeze the Kremlin's campaign to take over the liberal enclave, without Kyiv ever having to detonate a single device?
These are the interlinked puzzles that Alexander Bollfrass, an acclaimed scholar on nuclear weaponry at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, set out to solve, first in a groundbreaking think piece, and then in an interview with Forbes.
Dr. Bollfrass, head of strategy, technology and arms control at IISS, tells me in an interview that he war-gamed this scenario purely to predict the potential consequences of a hypothetical Ukrainian drive to craft an A-bomb, and whether a stockpiled weapon could become the ultimate guardian of a permanent ceasefire.
Yet Bollfrass, who as a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard designed war games for the university's Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, says he drew on Ukraine's real-life access to plutonium and uranium, and its current missile expertise, to construct these simulated war and peace maneuvers.
Ukraine's Chernobyl nuclear power plant, site of the world's worst nuclear accident, was recently ... More targeted by a Russian drone. (Photo by Sergei SUPINSKY / AFP) (Photo by SERGEI SUPINSKY/AFP via Getty Images)
Ukraine had a long history of constructing intercontinental ballistic missiles, but no longer possesses any ICBMs. Yet it does still produce an array of cruise missiles, he says, that could be adapted to hold strategic warheads.
At the same time, the leadership of Ukraine, with its control of an array of operable nuclear reactors, could siphon off uranium from these sites, but would have to build a network of advanced centrifuges to enrich this to weapons-grade levels.
And the Chernobyl reactor, site of the world's worst nuclear meltdown ever, holds enough plutonium to build at least one bomb.
But both of these potential pathways toward gaining fissile material for nuclear arms would be immediately detected by monitors posted by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
'Any existing fissile material on Ukrainian territory is under strict IAEA supervision,' Bollfrass tells me. 'The agency's inspectors would immediately detect the diversion of its reactor fuel or plutonium into a nuclear weapons program, quickly alerting the Russians in the process.'
The only way to pre-empt detection by these IAEA watchdogs would be for Ukraine to withdraw from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and expel the atomic inspectors, but those moves would amount to trumpeting Kyiv's clandestine quest to develop a nuclear warhead.
And any Ukrainian attempt to secretly operate facilities to produce highly enriched uranium 'would be hard to hide from the world's major intelligence services, the Russians' included,' Bollfrass says.
Russian intelligence agents, including those who select bombing targets across Ukraine, would likely use all means possible to locate and destroy these facilities.
The Kremlin, he adds, might even opt to launch a first strike, possibly with nuclear-armed missiles.
To build a credible deterrent, Ukraine would need to assemble not one device, but a small cache of fission or fusion bombs, increasing the likelihood of detection by Moscow and the incentives for it to obliterate these weapons before they are ever deployed, Bollfrass predicts.
When President Zelensky pleaded for Ukraine to be speedily admitted to NATO, during a gathering of the European Council last October, he said he regretted that his predecessors had voluntarily relinquished their stash of nuclear-capped ICBMs a generation ago, in exchange for security pledges that were never truly fulfilled.
Russia, which holds the planet's biggest stockpile of nuclear weapons, has issued repeated threats ... More to deploy strategic warheads against Ukraine or its Western partners during its illegal invasion. AFP PHOTO / POOL / HOST PHOTO AGENCY RIA NOVOSTI (Photo credit should read -/AFP via Getty Images)
After Ukraine regained its independence upon the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991, the liberal, pro-West leaders who took power also inherited nearly 2000 nuclear-tipped Soviet missiles - one of the largest stockpiles in the world.
As part of an American-brokered agreement called the Budapest Memorandum, Russia, the U.S. and the U.K. all pledged to respect Ukraine's borders and independence: Washington also provided security assurances to safeguard Ukraine's sovereignty in exchange for the country's giving up its strategic ICBMs.
But the West's protection of Ukraine's independence and borders has not lived up to the security pledges outlined in the Budapest pact.
This failure to beat back Moscow's ongoing blitzkrieg is decimating not only the safety of Ukraine's citizenry, but also the worldwide campaign to freeze nuclear proliferation, Bollfrass says.
The great-power democracies that are now aiding Ukraine should quickly bolster its defenses to preserve its position as a bulwark against Russian expansionism and to underscore that 'unprovoked aggression backed by nuclear threats is not rewarded,' he says.
'In the long term, without credible security guarantees of the kind NATO membership provides,' Bollfrass predicts, 'Ukraine may indeed be tempted to reach for nuclear self-help.'
Yet he says that Zelensky's NATO-or-nuclear ultimatum last fall was likely a bit of political theater that the actor-turned-president scripted to push forward his ultimate goal: fast-track admission to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky ultimately seeks not nuclear weapons, but rapid-fire ... More admission into NATO, says a nuclear proliferation scholar (Photo by JOHN THYS / AFP) (Photo by JOHN THYS/AFP via Getty Images)
Zelensky, an astute student of history and of NATO's origins, almost certainly knows that West Germany, which bordered the Soviet bloc and its immense nuclear firepower, signaled it might restart the German program to create atomic weapons as long as it was frozen out of NATO.
'Concern about German nuclear weapons potential stretched back to World War II, when Nazi Germany conducted an atomic bomb project,' say scholars at the National Security Archive.
The Western allies only admitted West Germany into NATO six years after the defense coalition was founded, these scholars add, conditioned on German 'Chancellor Konrad Adenauer's commitment not to produce nuclear weapons.'
President Zelensky himself has offered a similar commitment.
During a joint press conference with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte last October, Zelensky said Ukraine has no intention to develop nuclear weapons, but does seek protection under NATO's nuclear umbrella.