France denies suspicion of ‘transferring nuclear bombs to Ukraine’

The French Ministry of Defense today rejected information released two days earlier by the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) about the possibility of London and Paris supporting Kiev “in possessing a nuclear bomb or at least a dirty bomb, in order to achieve better terms at the peace negotiation table”.

“SVR’s baseless statements have been repeated by many Russian media channels and a number of foreign news agencies. Russia often posts false information to create an atmosphere of skepticism towards any moves from France and its partners to support Ukraine. This report is a typical example,” said Olivia Penichou, Communications Director of the French Ministry of Defense.

Ms. Penichou affirmed that Paris always respects international commitments, especially obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

The French Foreign Ministry previously stated that “flagrant disinformation” from Russia did not merit a response.

In a report published on February 24, SVR raised the possibility that Britain and France secretly transferred European components, equipment and technology to Ukraine to develop nuclear capacity, along with a media campaign to cover this as “domestic technology”.

SVR believes that France can also supply Ukraine with TN 75 nuclear warheads used for submarine-launched ballistic missiles. This agency mentioned the risk of Ukraine being pushed to create “dirty bombs”, which are conventional explosive devices with radioactive materials attached to cause lasting radioactive pollution.

Russian officials in recent days have expressed serious concerns about reports from SVR.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov warned that this was a “potentially very dangerous” issue, because of the alleged risk to the nuclear non-proliferation mechanism. Russian State Duma Chairman Vyacheslav Volodin plans to hold a vote to pass a resolution calling on British and French parliamentarians to investigate this allegation.

Vice Chairman of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev said that the accusation from the SVR “completely changes the situation” of the Ukraine issue, emphasizing that the scenario of Paris or London supporting Kiev would be equivalent to “directly transferring nuclear weapons to a warring country”.

“If that happens, Russia will certainly have to use all types of weapons, including non-strategic nuclear weapons, against targets in Ukraine. If necessary, we can even target countries that provide these capabilities to Ukraine, because they are already involved in the nuclear conflict,” he warned.