Nobody, including the West, will let Ukraine reject its nuclear-free status, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said.
“I don’t think anyone will let it done, primarily Western countries that have a decisive influence on the Ukrainian government,” Lavrov told journalists in the Ethiopian capital. He was responding to a request from Interfax to comment on a corresponding announcement of the Ukrainian defense minister.
Lavrov said the leadership of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry should deal more closely with maintaining the ceasefire in the country’s east.
“It would be better for the defense minister to deal with that instead of speculating about Ukraine getting armaments from NATO countries. Even less so should he engage in threats of renouncing the nuclear-free status,” Lavrov said.
On September 14 Ukrainian Defense Minister Valeriy Heletei said Ukraine could get back to the issue of restoring its nuclear status if it does not receive Western support in the ongoing armed conflict.
“If we fail to defend Ukraine today, if the world does not help us, we will have to get back to the creation of such weapons, which will defend us from Russia,” Heletei said at a press conference while speaking about the results of his presence at the NATO summit.
