Should NATO provide Kiev nuclear weapons, it would provoke Russia and risk a wider conflict, Aleksandar Pavic has told RT
FILE PHOTO. © Getty Images / FPG
[RT] Nuclear weapons in Ukraine would be a “recipe for disaster” as it would risk sparking a wider war by provoking Russia, Serbian lawmaker Aleksandar Pavic has warned.
Russia’s
Foreign Intelligence Service alleged this week that France and the UK
are plotting to secretly arm Ukraine with a nuclear weapon and are also
discussing assistance in building a radioactive “dirty bomb” using conventional explosives and nuclear materials.
Speaking
to RT on Thursday, Pavic said neither Washington nor Moscow would
accept such a drastic shift in the global balance of power.
“Any mention of nukes in Ukraine is bound to cause a Russian reaction,”
he warned, recalling that Vladimir Zelensky had raised the possibility
of Ukraine becoming a nuclear state at the Munich Security Conference in
2022 – an idea Pavic argued was “one of the main triggers of the Russian special military operation.”
Officials
in Kiev have repeatedly claimed their country possessed the world’s
third-largest nuclear arsenal and gave it up under the 1994 Budapest
Memorandum. In reality, nuclear weapons were present on Ukrainian soil
after the collapse of the Soviet Union but remained under Moscow’s
control.
Russia
argues that after the 2014 Western-backed coup in Kiev, Ukraine’s new
authorities breached the neutrality pledge underpinning its post-Soviet
independence by making NATO membership a key foreign policy goal.
The Serbian lawmaker drew a parallel with the Cuban Missile Crisis, saying: “We almost had a nuclear war – global nuclear war – in 1962 because Cuba wanted to deploy Soviet missiles, you know, 90 miles from the US shore, and of course the US wouldn’t allow that.”
“Why would Russia allow nuclear weapons that can reach Moscow within several minutes from Ukraine? I mean, that’s insane,” Pavic added. “You cannot have a nuclear power being threatened by nukes anywhere near its borders, or that’s a recipe for disaster.”
Russia
has warned France and the UK that alleged plans to provide Kiev with
nuclear capabilities could trigger severe global consequences, accusing
them at the UN Security Council of pursuing a dangerous escalation in
the Ukraine conflict.