Russia claims UK and France is preparing to give Ukraine a nuclear bomb

Vladimir Putin’s spokesman said the supply of nuclear weapons to Ukraine would be considered a ‘joint attack’ on Russia (Picture: Andriy Andriyenko)

Russia has marked the fourth anniversary of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine by claiming the UK and France are plotting a nuclear escalation in the conflict.

A notice released publicly by the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service – known as the SVR – says it has received information indicating the two countries want to send Ukraine a ‘wunderwaffe’ weapon.

The spy agency said: ‘Kyiv will be able to secure more favorable terms for ending the fighting if it possesses a nuclear bomb or at least a so-called “dirty bomb.”

‘Berlin wisely declined to participate in this dangerous adventure.’

This plan was responding to a recognition that ‘the current situation in Ukraine leaves no chance of achieving their much-desired victory over Russia’,according to the SVR.

Downing Street said there is ‘no truth’ to the claims from the agency,suggesting it was ‘a clear attempt by Vladimir Putin to distract’ from his actions in Ukraine.

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Metro's senior politics reporter Craig Munro breaks down all the chaos into easy to follow insight,in Metro's politics newsletter Alright,Gov? Sent every Wednesday. Sign up here.He added: ‘You will have seen the Prime Minister’s words this morning,paying tribute to the incredible resilience of the Ukrainians,and you will have seen the package of action on military,humanitarian,reconstruction fronts announced today,which is a sign of where our support is for Ukraine.’Responding to the claim in a post on X,the French Foreign Ministry said: ‘Five years into its “three-day war”,Russia would really prefer you focus on French and British nukes.’Bizarrely,the SVR suggested the West would try to cover up the acquisition of the bomb by making it ‘appear to be the result of Ukrainian development’.Volodymyr Zelensky has suggested Ukraine should either be given nuclear weapons or Nato membershire in the future (Picture: Michaela Stache/AFP via Getty Images)Dmitry Peskov,the top spokesman for President Vladimir Putin,said such a move would be considered a ‘joint attack’ on Russia and called for national and international investigations into the claims.Putin ally and former president Dmitry Medvedev argued it would force Russia to use nuclear weapons on Ukraine and,‘if necessary,against the supplier countries that become complicit’.Ukraine possessed nuclear weapons in the years after the break-up of the Soviet Union,but gave them up in December 1994 in return for security guarantees from countries including the UK,US and Russia.In October 2024,the country’s President Volodymyr Zelensky suggested this looked like a mistake in hindsight,following the Russian invasion.But he also said that,given the choice between the security provided by a nuclear arsenal or the security provided by Nato membership,he would always choose Nato.Smoke from a Russian attack on a house in a village near Kyiv (Picture: Ukrinform/Shutterstock)Instead,it is Vladimir Putin and other high-profile Russian figures who have made veiled threats to deploy nuclear weapons on the battlefield in Ukraine over the past four years.In September 2022,Medvedev argued Russia had a right to defend itself with nuclear weapons if pushed beyond certain limits,adding it was ‘certainly not a bluff’.And two years later,Putin himself told senior officials Russia would consider a nuclear retaliation if it was attacked directly – even with conventional weapons.The posturing has been dismissed by Zelensky’s government as blackmail and intimidation.Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at [email protected].