Ukrainian Foreign Ministry refutes reports about plans to develop nuclear weapons

Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Heorhii Tykhyi refuted on Thursday media reports about his country's plans to develop weapons of mass destruction.

"We officially deny the insinuations of unnamed sources in the BILD publication regarding Ukraine's alleged plans to develop weapons of mass destruction," he said in a statement on the ministry's website.

Earlier Thursday, the German media outlet claimed, with a link to a Ukrainian high-ranking official, that Kyiv can build a nuclear weapon "in a few weeks."

Tykhyi stressed that "Ukraine has been and remains a committed party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), to which it acceded in 1994, having renounced the world's third most powerful military nuclear capability."

"Ukraine is convinced that the NPT remains the cornerstone of the global international security architecture," he said. "Ukraine continues to comply with the provisions of the NPT and remains a responsible participant in the international nuclear non-proliferation regime."

Bild's report came after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said during his visit to Brussels that his country needs "either nuclear weapons or membership of NATO."