White House Confirms It Will Not Return Nuclear Weapons To Ukraine

JAKARTA - White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on Sunday the United States was not considering returning the nuclear weapons handed over after the Soviet Union collapsed to Ukraine.

Sullivan said when answering questions about a New York Times article last month that said some Western officials, who were not named, had advised US President Joe Biden to give the weapon to Ukraine before he left office.

"It's not being considered, no," he told ABC.

"What we do is increase the conventional capacity to Ukraine so that they can effectively defend themselves and fight Russia, not (provide them) nuclear capabilities," Sullivan explained.

Last week, Russia said the idea of returning nuclear weapons to Ukraine was "absolute craze", preventing such a scenario was one of the reasons why Moscow sent troops to Ukraine.

It is known that Kyiv inherited nuclear weapons from the Soviet Union after its collapse in 1991 but handed it over under a 1994 agreement, Budapest Memorandum, in exchange for security guarantees from Russia, the United States and Britain.