How a nuclear-armed Ukraine could become ‘Europe's Israel'

Telegraph

24-02-2025

Had nuclear war ever broken out between the Soviet Union and the West, Major Valeriy Kuznetsov would probably have been one of the very last people left alive on Earth. An officer in the 46th Division of the Soviet Strategic Rocket Forces, he was stationed at a nuclear missile bunker in Ukraine, where he sat with two comrades in a command capsule 150 feet underground.
Protected by 6ft-thick metal walls, the capsule was fitted with shock absorbers and seatbelts, enabling those inside to survive the impact of a direct Western nuclear strike. It would then have been Kuznetsov's duty to type a set of codes into a keyboard, then press a button marked 'Start Up'.
From underground silos in the surrounding countryside, giant metal hatches would have opened, and up to 80 strategic nuclear missiles would have launched, enough to destroy the West many times over. It would almost certainly have spelt the end of humankind – and yes, Kuznetsov is in no doubt that he would have followed orders.
'It would have been my duty,' he smiles. 'What would have happened to my family, my relatives, my country, all that was a secondary thing. We had to be there in that bunker till the end of life on Earth.'
Mercifully, Kuznetsov never was required to do his duty, and today the missile base, near the formerly closed town of Pervomaisk, 200 miles south of Kyiv, is a museum. Visitors can tour the bunker, press the grey button, and inspect the 120ft hulk of a Soviet 'Satan' nuclear missile, 200 times more powerful than the bomb dropped at Hiroshima.
An equally chilling exhibit is a small safe in the bunker, which once contained pistols. 'They were there for those inside the bunker to use on themselves, had they decided life was no longer worth living once the world was ruined,' says museum guide Olena Smrycheveska.
For Ukrainians, however, the most sobering aspect of the museum is not what it says about the past, but what it says about the present. Pervomaisk was one of two nuclear missile bases in Ukraine, which between them held a third of the Soviet atomic arsenal. But as a signatory to counter-proliferation efforts of the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, a newly-independent Kyiv gave up the weapons in exchange for security guarantees from Russia, the US and the UK.
With Vladimir Putin having blatantly violated those guarantees through his invasion three years ago today, many in Ukraine profoundly regret not holding on to the weapons. And with Donald Trump earlier this month appearing to rule out future Nato membership for Ukraine, they now wonder, too, about whether to build their own independent nuclear deterrent from scratch.
'I felt bad when we had to give up our nuclear weapons,' sighs Kuznetsov, 71, who was at Pervomaisk for much of his military career. 'It was a crime by the leaders of the countries that forced us to sign the memorandum, and our own leaders who agreed to do it. For sure, yes, I'd like Ukraine to have nuclear weapons again.'
Acquiring nuclear capability in the 21st century is something normally associated with rogue states such as Iran and North Korea. But despite being a darling of the West, Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelensky, fears it may be his country's only long-term guarantee of survival.
Even prior to Mr Trump's return to the White House, Kyiv sensed that Western military support was never more than half-hearted. And with Mr Trump now negotiating directly with Putin, Ukraine is less in control of its own destiny than ever. Small wonder, then, that Mr Zelensky feels that nuclear weapons are the only effective long-term deterrent to Russia's aggression. As he told a meeting of the EU leaders in Brussels last autumn: 'Either Ukraine will have nuclear weapons and that will be our protection, or we should have some sort of alliance. Apart from Nato, today we do not know any effective alliances.'
Wary of alarming Western partners, Zelensky's aides have stressed that Kyiv is not currently seeking to build its own bomb. But with Russia still posing an existential threat, and Kyiv unable to feel complete trust in its Western backers, nobody entirely rules it out for the future. Among them is the Ukrainian-born historian Eugene Finkel, who, in his new book Intent to Destroy: Russia's Two-Hundred-Year Quest to Dominate Ukraine, writes that his homeland could become an 'Israel on the Dnipro'. This does not just mean a battle-hardened population used to fending for themselves, but becoming, like Israel, an independent nuclear power.
'It all depends on how the war ends, but if there's no regaining of territory, and no Nato promises, I can see serious politicians in Ukraine, especially on the Right, pushing for this,' Finkel told The Telegraph. 'They may even find some sympathy in the West. However, while people might feel it is justified, I think it will be a disaster. Europe doesn't need another nuclear state at the centre of the continent, and Ukraine has better things to spend its money on.'
Ukraine has means as well as motive. As one of the most technologically-advanced of the former Soviet states, it has a long history of expertise in both nuclear enrichment and weapons delivery systems. Its existing nuclear reactors could provide the requisite uranium and plutonium. Converting it to weapons-grade would require additional fuel reprocessing facilities to generate fissile material from spent fuel, but few deem that beyond reach, given Kyiv's current track-record of military innovation. Ukraine already has missiles such as the Soviet-era Tochka, which can carry nuclear warheads, according Dr Sidharth Kaushal, a senior research fellow at London's Royal United Services Institute.
He points out, however, that neither the West nor Russia would idly sit by and let this happen. Ukraine's nuclear facilities are routinely monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency, whose inspectors would spot any unsanctioned enrichment activity. 'Not only would it alarm Ukraine's Western partners, it would also give Russia a pretext for further military intervention, which the West would find harder to argue against,' he says. Doing it in secret, he adds, would also be difficult, given that Russia is still thought to have numerous moles within Ukraine's security establishment.
Besides, even if a number of nuclear missiles were built, he questions just how much deterrent they would really be, given Putin's disregard for his fellow Russians' lives. 'A short-range missile with a nuclear warhead could destroy some city in southern Russia, maybe. But the Russians have already lost hundreds of thousands of lives in the war anyway, so that might be a price they could afford to pay.
'In some ways, having a small nuclear arsenal is the worst of both worlds; it invites pre-emptive strikes, without providing much certainty about your capacity to retaliate.'
No Ukrainian politicians have publicly committed to building a nuclear programme, and most officially rule it out. Although, according to Gennady Druzenko, a constitutional expert who is planning a future presidential bid, 'if you wanted to make a nuclear bomb, you wouldn't boast about it.' He personally argues that Ukraine's best deterrent is simply to increase its stockpile of conventional long-range missiles to enable it to hit Moscow.
Dr Kaushal suspects Mr Zelensky may be taking a 'catalytic' nuclear posture, the point being not so much to frighten Russia as to scare Ukraine's allies into providing proper security guarantees. Either way, it appears popular with many Ukrainians. A survey last April said more than half the population now backed Kyiv regaining nuclear weapons.
However, the narrative that a naive Kyiv was misled by the West into disarming back in 1994 is itself somewhat misleading. For a start, the codes to all the weapons in bases like Pervomaisk were held solely by Moscow, which also bore their vast upkeep costs. Nor, in the early 1990s, did it seem anything other than wise for ex-Soviet satellite states to scrap their nuclear stockpiles, given the civil wars already raging in the Caucasus and Balkans.
'The alternative history of what might have happened without the Budapest Memorandum is a compelling story that many Ukrainians choose to believe,' says Finkel. 'It reflects a sense that if Nato membership isn't in the offing, then Ukraine needs another source of protection, and nuclear weapons could be that.'
Yet even were Ukraine to develop a massive independent nuclear stockpile, there is no guarantee it would ensure the peaceful stalemate that prevailed for half a century between the Soviet Union and the West. The Cold War, after all, was between two powers who had never fought each other, and who saw themselves as rivals rather than mortal enemies. After three years of appalling bloodshed, the very opposite is true about Ukraine and Russia.
Few would be confident that someone, someday might not issue orders to fire, be it a bloodthirsty Kremlin tyrant like Putin, or a Ukrainian leader sick and tired of being bullied. Indeed, were Major Kuznetsov still down in his bunker, this time with his missiles pointed at Moscow, he vows he'd do his duty just as before. 'Yes,' he says. 'I'd press the button on Russia now if I had to.'