{"id":1327009,"date":"2022-02-22T12:40:05","date_gmt":"2022-02-22T17:40:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1327009"},"modified":"2022-02-22T12:40:11","modified_gmt":"2022-02-22T17:40:11","slug":"ukraine-zelensky-seeks-end-to-russia-diplomatic-ties-after-hinting-at-pursuing-nuclear-weapons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/ukraine-zelensky-seeks-end-to-russia-diplomatic-ties-after-hinting-at-pursuing-nuclear-weapons\/","title":{"rendered":"Ukraine: Zelensky Seeks End to Russia Diplomatic Ties After Hinting at Pursuing Nuclear Weapons"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">28<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fukraine-zelensky-seeks-end-to-russia-diplomatic-ties-after-hinting-at-pursuing-nuclear-weapons%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1327009&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Putin-Zelensky-640x335-1.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/div>\n<p class=\"subheading\">Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced on Tuesday that he was reviewing a request from his diplomats to cut all ties to Russia in response to Russian leader Vladimir Putin recognizing Russian proxies in the country as sovereign states and ordering \u201cpeacekeeping\u201d troops into Ukraine.<\/p>\n<p>Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014, colonizing its southern Crimea region and investing heavily, evidence suggests, in pro-Russian separatists in the Donbas region. Russia openly considers Crimea part of its sovereign territory but has previously denied being involved in Donbas. On Monday, Putin announced that he would recognize the two regions that together comprise Donbas, Donetsk and Luhansk, as sovereign states, and honor a request from their \u201cgovernments\u201d for Russian military support against Ukraine.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"D-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"gmxrevmore\" class=\"H\"><\/figure>\n<p>In an extensive, meandering speech, Putin repeatedly <a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/asia\/2022\/02\/21\/ukraine-completely-created-russia-putin-recognizes-sovereignty-pro-russian-separatists\/\">declared<\/a> that Ukraine had no right to exist, was a Russian fabrication, and owed its existence entirely to Vladimir Lenin.<\/p>\n<p>Putin made the move after President Joe Biden suggested in remarks to reporters in January that America would not intervene in the event that Putin engaged in a \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/politics\/2022\/01\/20\/zelensky-to-biden-no-minor-incursions\/\">minor incursion<\/a>\u201d of Ukraine. Following Putin\u2019s speech, a senior administration official <a href=\"https:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/briefing-room\/press-briefings\/2022\/02\/21\/background-press-call-by-senior-administration-officials-on-russia-and-ukraine\/\">appeared<\/a> to confirm that the Biden administration considered the move into Donbas a \u201cminor incursion,\u201d as \u201cRussian troops moving into Donbas would not itself be a new step\u201d that would trigger the full range of sanctions Biden had promised in January against any renewed Russian invasion.<\/p>\n<p>Zelensky, who had expressed extreme exasperation with warnings from the White House for the past month of an \u201cimminent\u201d invasion of the entirety of Ukraine, had hinted in remarks this weekend that he believed Kyiv should consider building a nuclear weapons program. The country had <a href=\"https:\/\/www.brookings.edu\/blog\/order-from-chaos\/2019\/12\/05\/why-care-about-ukraine-and-the-budapest-memorandum\/\">abandoned<\/a> all nuclear ambitions in 1994, signing the Budapest Memorandum that issued security guarantees from the West \u2013 meaning Western countries would fill in the defense gap left by Ukraine destroying its nuclear weapons \u2013 in exchange for Kyiv agreeing not to pursue nuclear weapons development.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B2\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cWe see an attack on the sovereignty and territorial integrity of our state. I received a request from the Foreign Ministry to consider the issue of severing diplomatic relations between Ukraine and Russia,\u201d Zelensky <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ukrinform.net\/rubric-polytics\/3409302-zelensky-says-he-will-consider-severing-diplomatic-relations-with-russia.html\">said<\/a> on Tuesday. \u201cImmediately after the press conference, I will work on this and other issues.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Zelensky nonetheless offered the Russian government an avenue for \u201cdialogue\u201d rather than escalating the ongoing proxy war into an open war between Russia and Ukraine.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe understand all the risks. We are again calling on Russia to resolve these issues through dialogue, to sit down at the negotiating table,\u201d the president said. \u201cWe are ready to meet at any venue. In recent months, we have held consultations with almost all the leaders of EU, US, UK, Germany, France, etc. and offered any format of dialogue where the Russian Federation would be present.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe received the answer and that answer came yesterday. Ukraine must respond to this by defending sovereignty and our state,\u201d Zelensky concluded, according to the Ukrainian government news outlet Ukrinform.<\/p>\n<p>Ukraine\u2019s apparent exit from diplomacy with Russia in the event that Putin does not respond positively to Zelensky\u2019s call for dialogue follows a threat from the Ukrainian president this weekend to withdraw from the Budapest framework that keeps Ukraine from obtaining nuclear weapons.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B3\" class=\"a8d adSo\"><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cUkraine received security guarantees for abandoning the world\u2019s third nuclear capability. We do not have those weapons. Nor do we have security,\u201d Zelensky <a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/politics\/2022\/02\/21\/volodymyr-zelensky-warns-west-of-karma-for-ignoring-8-year-old-russian-invasion-of-ukraine\/\">said<\/a> in remarks to the Munich Security Conference.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSince 2014, Ukraine has made three attempts to convene consultations with the guarantor states of the Budapest Memorandum. Three attempts failed. Today Ukraine will make the fourth attempt. And I will make my first attempt as the President,\u201d Zelensky announced, \u201cBut both Ukraine and I are doing this for the last time.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>If the guarantors of the memorandum \u2013 the United Kingdom and America \u2013 fail to end the Russian colonization of Ukraine, Zelensky asserted, \u201cUkraine will have every right to believe that the Budapest Memorandum is not working and all the 1994 package decisions have been called into question,\u201d indicating he would pursue nuclear development.<\/p>\n<p>Nuclear energy is a contentious issue in Ukraine given its status as the home of history\u2019s worst nuclear disaster: the meltdown of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant on April 26, 1986. While much of the fallout spread north to Belarus, the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, the greater area surrounding the plant, has been evacuated since the disaster. Since becoming president in 2019, however, Zelensky has been an active proponent of peaceful nuclear energy development, <a href=\"https:\/\/world-nuclear-news.org\/Articles\/Ukraine-must-expand-nuclear-energy-says-President\">issuing<\/a> a decree in 2020 to expand nuclear energy capabilities. Zelensky has also spearheaded efforts to attract tourism to Chernobyl,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.breitbart.com\/environment\/2021\/04\/26\/ukraine-zelensky-promises-chernobyl-renaissance-35th-anniversary-nuclear-disaster\/\">vowing<\/a> a \u201crenaissance\u201d on the 35th anniversary of the disaster in 2021.<\/p>\n<p>Putin\u2019s speech on Monday directly addressed Zelensky\u2019s threat.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs\u00a0we know, it has already been stated today that Ukraine intends to\u00a0create its own nuclear weapons, and\u00a0this is not just bragging,\u201d Putin <a href=\"http:\/\/en.kremlin.ru\/events\/president\/news\/67828\">claimed<\/a>. \u201cUkraine has the\u00a0nuclear technologies created back in\u00a0the\u00a0Soviet times and\u00a0delivery vehicles for\u00a0such weapons, including aircraft, as\u00a0well as\u00a0the\u00a0Soviet-designed Tochka-U precision tactical missiles with a\u00a0range of\u00a0over 100 kilometres. But they can do more; it is only a\u00a0matter of\u00a0time.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced on Tuesday that he was reviewing a request from his diplomats to cut all ties to Russia in response to Russian leader Vladimir Putin recognizing<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1327009","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1327009","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1327009"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1327009\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1327009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1327009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1327009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}