Trump has stated he will cut American aid to Ukraine, which makes a majority of total aid. Recently Zelensky stated that if Ukraine’s only hope for sovereignty is its own nuclear arsenal, they will build it.
Trump has stated he will cut American aid to Ukraine, which makes a majority of total aid. Recently Zelensky stated that if Ukraine’s only hope for sovereignty is its own nuclear arsenal, they will build it.
Good detail in that article. With regard to plutonium, Sweden had a plutonium breeding reactor disguised as a civilian power plant called Ågestaverket. I think that Ukraine would be able to use an existing reactor for this, or retrofit it. But yeah, any Ukrainian nuclear program would obviously become a huge target by the Russian military, and potentially other nuclear states. Ideally these installations would be underground like Ågestaverket was. Even more ideal would be military guarantees from NATO.
I don’t know anything about the laws limiting transfer of fissile material and may violate issues with NATO membership. I’m not seeing the upside for Sweden to do any of this.
And from a quick search makes it sound like decommissioning of Ågestaverket began in 2020 and should be done in 2025. So the plant would need to be, essentially, rebuilt.
Next, the nuclear program was shut down in 1961 because they didn’t have any Pu-240 to refine into Pu-247. Finally, when the program did exist, they had to get their heavy water from Norway. Heavy water allows them to use yellow cake directly for fissile material, but they still use light water but need an enrichment program. So, technically it’s a long way still.
It’s not confirmed publicly, but Sweden likely ended their nuclear weapons program in the 60s or 70s after pressure from the US. They finally decommissioned Ågestaverket in 2020, though they kept the facility open until then, presumably as a fallback option. Sweden has uranium deposits, so it would have been possible to build nuclear weapons during the Cold War if needed.
Now with NATO membership, they have instead imported American nuclear weapons to keep on Swedish soil. Not sure what will happen with their Swedish-American SOFA with Trump, it’s possible that Sweden will fall back on British and French nukes.
But yeah, I mentioned Ågestaverket, since its an example of a civilian reactor that was used for nuclear weapons, something that Ukraine could potentially do as well if the decision came to proliferate.
They could eventually spin it up, but would take longer than the months you first mention. Technical and material issues exist between yellow cake and weapons grade fissile material that the Ukrainian may not have access to (heavy water or plutonium). Even if they do, transforming their current civilian system would take several years optimistically.
Ultimately, that’s my biggest issue is time. It’s not months but years.
CANDU-like or RBMK-like design could work for this purpose, but i have doubts about VVERs that they have