Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky gave a special address on October 6th to the Lowy Institute, an Australian think tank, in which he apparently called for a preventive nuclear strike by NATO against Russia—just days after he signed a decree on October 4th that ruled out further negotiations with Russia. While Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called the statement “essentially a call for the start of a world war,” the Ukrainian press secretary Serhii Nykyforov was quick to deny the incendiary claim. He argued instead that Zelensky’s call for “preemptive strikes” referred to a non-nuclear, but preventative strategy he would have preferred before the invasion of Ukraine on February 24th.
In the conversation with Lowy Institute Executive Director Michael Fullilove, the Ukrainian president was asked about whether he believed the likelihood of Russia using nuclear weapons against Ukraine had increased, and what he wanted “NATO to do to deter Russia from using nuclear weapons.” Zelensky responded by talking about the nuclear threat caused by the situation at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant: Putin, on October 5th, had decreed the nuclear plant Russian federal property. Afterwards, Zelensky shared his expectations of NATO, here transcribed from the simultaneous translation heard at the Lowy Institute, with slight corrections of grammar:
Now what should NATO do to prevent the use of nuclear weapons by Russia? What’s important, and I have to underline this once more in my expectancy to the international community, preventive strikes [preventive actions], so that Russia would know what would happen to them, and not in return—I mean waiting for the nuclear strikes first and to then say what’s going to happen to them. There is a need to review the way pressure is being exerted, so there is a need to review this procedure, so to say.
While mostly ignored by mainstream media outlets at the time of this writing, with only Reuters and Politico publishing headlines that Moscow “misinterpreted” the statement, the common interpretation of the words of the Ukrainian president in other publications has been that Zelensky called upon NATO to consider the use of nuclear strikes as a means of preventing Russia from doing so first. It has been common doctrine among even the most uncivilized of nuclear powers not to strike first, and even Vladimir Putin’s recent nuclear threats were announced under the condition of an attack against Russian territory—murky as that definition may be, given the recent annexation of parts of Eastern Ukraine.
Unsurprisingly, the Kremlin reacted with indignation to this demand by the Ukrainian president. Dmitry Peskov called Zelensky’s statement “a call to start a world war with unpredictable monstrous consequences,” adding that “all countries of the world should pay attention” to this statement, and naming the U.S., the UK, and the EU countries as the ones that should “pay special attention” to Zelensky’s words. He specifically highlighted the United States and the United Kingdom, who, according to Peskov, “de facto run Kyiv,” and thus “should be held accountable for Zelensky’s actions and statements.”
These claims, however, were quickly denied by Ukrainian president spokesman Serhii Nykyforov, who claimed that Zelensky had only been talking about preventive sanctions prior to the invasion of Ukraine on February 24th:
The president was talking about the period before February 24th. Then it was necessary to take preventive measures to deter Russia from unleashing an invasion. Let me remind you that the only measures that were discussed then were preemptive sanctions. Only the terrorist state Russia allows itself to blackmail the world with explosions at ZNPP [Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant] and hint in every possible way at the use of nuclear weapons. You will never hear such calls from Ukraine.
This explanation is based on a different translation of Zelensky’s statement used by Ukrainian outlets, which, in comparison to the simultaneous translation at Lowy, reads as follows:
What should NATO do? To make it impossible for Russia to use nuclear weapons. But what is important—I once again appeal to the international community, as it was before February 24th. Preemptive strikes so that they know what will happen to them if they use it. And not vice versa—to wait for nuclear strikes by Russia, and then say: “Oh yeah? Well, watch this.” To reconsider the use of its pressure—this is what NATO should do, to reconsider the order of application.
However, while February 24th is referred to in this translation, so are nuclear strikes, and it remains unclear how any form of “preemptive sanctions,” as claimed by Nykyforov, could have prevented Russia from a nuclear strike, considering that even the massive use of sanctions in place did nothing to deter Russia from considering the use of nuclear weapons.
Additionally, Mikhail Podolyak, adviser to the head of the office of the Ukrainian president, gave an interpretation of Zelensky’s speech, saying that the president had only “reminded about Russian nuclear blackmail and suggested that the world preemptively outline the consequences for Russia and intensify such strikes as sanctions and armed assistance to Ukraine.”
While such a reading requires a stretch of the imagination, if true, the Presidential Office of Ukraine would be well advised to at least choose its words more carefully and precisely, given the tense situation in the world, especially considering the amount of video calls the Ukrainian president has with Western leaders.
