Putin Spins a Conspiracy Theory That Ukraine Is on a Path to Nuclear Weapons
The New York Times
Russia’s president has made such arguments before, but usually as asides — not as the justification for urgent action in Ukraine.
MUNICH — When Ukraine gave up a huge arsenal of nuclear weapons left on its territory after the collapse of the Soviet Union, it famously struck a deal with Washington, London and Moscow, trading the weapons for a guarantee of its security and borders.
Not surprisingly, the Ukrainian government is wondering what happened to that guarantee.
But President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has a very different complaint: He is spinning out a conspiracy theory — perhaps as a pretext to seize the country in a military operation that began there early Thursday — that Ukraine and the United States are secretly plotting to put nuclear weapons back into the country.
