Britain and France cannot simply transfer nuclear warheads to Ukraine when Kiev does not have infrastructure for these weapons, Mr. Vasily Kashin - Director of the Center for Comprehensive European and International Studies at the Higher School of Economics shared with TASS.
Mr. Kashin said that the transfer of nuclear warheads requires a specialized infrastructure system for storage and maintenance.
Technically, simply transferring a nuclear warhead is impossible, because there needs to be a certain infrastructure for storage and maintenance," he said.
Russian experts emphasized that although Ukraine used to have nuclear weapons on its territory, it has never completely controlled those weapons and does not have infrastructure to maintain nuclear weapons.
Meanwhile, nuclear weapons need to be monitored and maintained continuously, so handing them over to Ukraine without the necessary infrastructure is not feasible.
According to Mr. Kashin, another scenario that could theoretically occur is that Ukraine develops its own nuclear weapons with design assistance or technical documents.
However, the Russian expert emphasized that this process will require huge investment in building nuclear warhead production facilities as well as storage and maintenance systems. He believes that the development of the nuclear program cannot happen quickly or secretly.
Mr. Kashin also said that the UK is not a full nuclear power in the sense of owning the entire production chain.
He pointed out that the UK does not produce ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads. This country also does not possess submarine-launched ballistic missiles that are actually leased from the US.
The Trident II missile system used by the UK has a British-made warhead but with the participation of the US and components from the US.
So Britain in fact cannot transfer this type of weapon to any country" - he emphasized.
Unlike Britain, France has a complete nuclear production cycle, including weapons vehicles.
According to Mr. Kashin, in theory France can share some capabilities, especially when Europe is discussing the possibility of France expanding its "nuclear depot" to European countries and adjusting its nuclear strategy.
However, he warned that this would be an extremely risky step for France.
He noted that, according to Russia's nuclear doctrine, if a country transfers nuclear weapons to Ukraine, then Ukraine's use of them will automatically trigger a military response from Russia aimed at the country that transferred the weapons.
If we have fallen into a nuclear war with Russia, what else do we need Ukraine for?" - he asked.
This expert concluded that although there are currently debates about the possibility of providing nuclear weapons to Kiev, the possibility of this scenario happening in reality is very low.
