16.09 Russian Deputy Foreign Minister: Ukraine’s Non-Nuclear Status Cannot Be Revised

MOSCOW, September 16 (RIA Novosti) – Ukraine’s non-nuclear state status, sealed in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) cannot be revised, and any talk on the issue is baseless, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Tuesday.

“We assume that Ukraine’s status of a non-nuclear state as signatory to the NPT treaty was sealed once and for all and cannot be revised,” he told RIA Novosti in an interview.

Ukraine gave up the nuclear arsenal it received after the Soviet Union collapse in 1993 in exchange for international guarantees of its security and territorial integrity.