**US Envoy: Ukraine Won’t Get Nuclear Power Status**
The US President’s special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, Keith Kellogg, says it’s unlikely that Ukraine will regain its nuclear power status. He made this comment in an interview with Fox News on February 6.
Kellogg said, “The chance of them getting their nuclear weapons back is somewhere between slim and none.” He added that Ukraine should not have nuclear weapons because the US government is a government of common sense.
This comes after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky suggested that if Ukraine’s NATO accession remains blocked, the US should provide an alternative security guarantee, including nuclear weapons. Zelensky said that gaining NATO membership could take years or decades and raised concerns about how Ukraine would defend itself in the meantime.
Ukraine formally applied to join NATO at the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022 but has yet to receive an invitation. Russia has made a complete ban on Ukraine’s NATO accession one of its core demands in potential talks to end the war.
**Background**
Ukraine relinquished its Soviet-era nuclear arsenal under the Budapest Memorandum in 1994, joining the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) in exchange for security assurances from the US, UK, and Russia. However, Moscow later violated this agreement by occupying Crimea and parts of eastern Ukraine.
While the war has renewed discussions on whether Ukraine should rebuild its nuclear deterrent, Kyiv maintains that NATO membership remains its best security guarantee and has no plans to develop nuclear weapons.
**Next Steps**
Kellogg will attend the Munich Security Conference from February 14 to 16, where he will meet with world leaders to discuss Russia’s war in Ukraine and assess positions on negotiations.
