SERGEI ILNITSKY / POOL / AFP
- Russian President Vladimir Putin has responded to Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s nuclear comments.
- The Ukrainian president had suggested that Kyiv would seek nuclear weapons if it could not join NATO.
- Zelenskyy later walked back his statement.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s comments about nuclear weapons earlier this week were a “dangerous act of provocation.”
Putin was referring to Zelenskyy’s suggestion that Kyiv would seek nuclear weapons if it could not join NATO.
Speaking at the European Council summit in Brussels on Thursday, the Ukrainian president referred to the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, which resulted in Ukraine giving up its Soviet nuclear weapons in exchange for security assurances.
“Who gave up nuclear weapons? All of them? No. Ukraine. Who is fighting today? Ukraine,” Zelenskyy said.
“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,” he added.
Responding to Zelenskyy’s comments on Friday, Putin said: “Any step in this direction will meet an adequate response.”
“Under no circumstances will Russia allow this to happen,” he added.
Zelenskyy later walked back his comments, saying in a joint press conference with NATO chief Mark Rutte: “We never spoke about that we are preparing to create nuclear weapon or something like this.”
“We don’t do nuclear weapon. Please, don’t move these messages,” he added.
Putin’s warning came during a meeting with journalists from BRICS group members.
The BRICS group, named after members Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, was created in the mid-2000s to challenge the political and economic power of developed Western countries.
The bloc has grown to include Ethiopia, Iran, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates. Saudi Arabia, which had a media representative attend Friday’s meeting, has been invited to join the group but has yet to formally do so.