Zelenskyy "If NATO membership fails, it seeks nuclear capability"

Ukrainian President Zelenskyy has said he will pursue nuclear capabilities to protect himself if North Atlantic Treaty Organization, NATO membership fails, Ukrainian media reported.

During a meeting with former U.S. President Trump last month, President Zelensky expressed his intention to have nuclear weapons to protect Ukraine or join NATO, and was reported to have received a response saying it was a "justifiable claim."

He also claimed that Ukraine had lost its nuclear shield on the condition of being guaranteed territory and sovereignty by the West, but that other powers that had maintained nuclear weapons had not experienced an all-out war.

Ukraine had the world's third-largest number of nuclear weapons during the former Soviet era, but signed a Budapest Memorandum of Understanding stating that it would hand them over to Russia after the breakup of the Soviet Union and be guaranteed territory and sovereignty by the United States and Britain.