[ Editorial ] No Nukes for Zelensky

Following his interest in rare earth minerals, Donald Trump is now reportedly seeking control over Ukraine’s nuclear power plants. Not business as usual.

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Assertions that negotiations between Russia and the United States have stalled are misguided. The current ceasefire—limited to energy infrastructure and the Black Sea—reflects a pragmatic strategy. As long as President Zelensky and his ardent European backers fail to acknowledge that they’ve lost the war, efforts appear directed at containing its scope, starting with its outer edges, to prevent a broader regional overspill beyond Ukraine’s borders.

Recent remarks by Donald Trump have, predictably, provoked a strong reaction across Europe. Suggestions that the United States might assume control of Ukraine’s nuclear power plants have been framed as an opportunistic overreach—an act of territorial or economic exploitation. This perception underscores a deep flaw with the strategic foresight of European leaders.

That said, Ukraine is not the central issue in the discussions between Washington and Moscow. The primary objective for Russia and the United States appears to be the construction of a new global security framework, one designed to guarantee that the world’s two preeminent nuclear powers avoid direct confrontation. This effort can be seen as an attempt to restore a mutual security undermined by U.S. neoconservative policies since the early 2000s—a prudent and welcome development for global peace. Meanwhile, the more pressing challenge of the Middle East looms large, a crisis unlikely to be resolved without the involvement of China and Russia. Europeans again remain noticeably peripheral.

Since taking office in 2019, President Zelensky has repeatedly hinted at pursuing a domestic nuclear capability should Ukraine’s NATO aspirations falter or if U.S. nuclear-capable systems are not deployed on its soil.

His speech at the Munich Security Conference on February 19, 2022, was telling: “Ukraine has received security guarantees for abandoning the world's third nuclear capability. We don't have that weapon. We also have no security. We also do not have part of the territory of our state that is larger in area than Switzerland, the Netherlands or Belgium. And most importantly - we don’t have millions of our citizens. We don’t have all this. Therefore, we have something. The right to demand a shift from a policy of appeasement to ensuring security and peace guarantees.”

Five days later, Russia launched its invasion, Zelensky’s rhetoric as justification for perceiving an existential threat.

To clarify, Ukraine itself never controlled nuclear weapons—those belonged to the Soviet Union, with Russia as its sole legal heir. Nonetheless, Ukraine retains significant technical know-how, equipment, and materials, including fuel and waste, sufficient to produce at least dirt bombs. The United States seems increasingly unwilling to indulge what it views as Zelensky’s reckless blackmail on nuclear matters. The shelling of the Zaporizhzhia plant by Ukrainian armed forces, just 48 hours after its capture by Russia, brought us close to a major nuclear accident —a stark reminder of the stakes.

The Lisbon Protocol to the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, signed by Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine, stipulated the destruction or return to Russia of nuclear weapons located on the territories of theses former Soviet republics. Only Ukraine refused to comply and, from the outset, engaged in nuclear blackmail. This is why the Budapest Memorandum had to be signed three years later; in 1994. The Ukrainians have consistently been the sole problem.

The broader strategy now appears to center on ensuring that Ukraine, because it’s regime is unreliable, is stripped of all access to nuclear technology. Since its independence, Ukraine’s governance has been marred by corruption and instability, making it the weakest link in non-proliferation efforts during the 1990s.

Trump’s push to seize control of Ukraine’s nuclear infrastructure is less about money and more about neutralizing proliferation and terrorism risks. This would entail removing Ukraine’s control of its nuclear plants, severing its access to fissile materials, and closely monitoring personnel with dual-use expertise.

Ukraine will be neutralized, demilitarized, and denuclearized - there is no way around it. That would represent a net positive for European security—though this perspective seems to elude much of the EU’s current leadership.