Zelensky says he told Trump Ukraine will pursue nuclear weapons if it can’t join NATO
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky said Thursday he has told former President Donald Trump that Kyiv will pursue nuclear weapons for defense if it doesn’t gain entry to NATO.
“In a conversation with Donald Trump, I told him it comes to this,” Zelensky said in Ukrainian while speaking to the European Council in Brussels.
“The outcome is either Ukraine will be a nuclear power — and that will be our protection — or we should have some kind of alliance. Other than NATO, today we don’t know of any effective alliances.”
Zelensky, 46, emphasized that Ukraine is choosing to pursue membership in the 32-nation Atlantic alliance as its priority.
“I believe that he heard me,” the Ukrainian leader said of Trump, 78.
“He said it was a fair argument.”
Zelensky noted that Ukraine had given up its nuclear arsenal voluntarily with the signing of the 1994 Budapest Memorandum in exchange for security guarantees from Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States.
“Who suffered out of these countries? Everyone? No. Only Ukraine,” he said in frustration. “Who gave up nuclear weapons? Everyone? No. Only one. Who? Ukraine.”
Prior to the Budapest Memorandum, Ukraine had the world’s third-largest nuclear stockpile on its soil following the breakup of the Soviet Union. It is one of four countries — along with Belarus, Kazakhstan and South Africa — to have voluntarily embraced nuclear disarmament.
Zelensky met with the 45th president at Trump Tower in late September, when the pair discussed Ukraine’s strategy for fighting its war against Russia.
Following the meeting, Trump told reporters he had “learned a lot” from the Ukrainian leader.
Trump has reiterated that the Russia-Ukraine war should never have “happened” and promised to “get it solved” — without revealing details of his plan to end the largest European conflict since World War II.
The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to an inquiry from The Post about Zelensky’s Thursday comments.