Many Ukrainians complain they don’t have enough money. Others say they don’t have good leadership.
But presidential candidate Natalia Vitrenko thinks she has put the finger on the problem: She wants to bring greatness to Ukraine by bringing back its bombs – nuclear bombs.
Vitrenko, who consistently ranks second in the polls after President Leonid Kuchma, made the remarks during a Sept. 3 campaign stop to Chernivtsi, a southwestern provincial capital of 261,000 people.
The leader of the Progressive Socialist Party said Ukraine needs to restore its nuclear-weapon arsenal and form a ‘common shield’ with Belarus and Russia against NATO.
‘There are plans to ignite an internal crisis in Ukraine which will end in the deployment of NATO troops, something I can’t allow to happen,’ Vitrenko reportedly said.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine – with Western financial assistance – surrendered its nuclear weapons. Moreover, the Ukrainian constitution – adopted in 1996 – defines Ukraine as a nuclear weapon-free, non-aligned nation.
While Vitrenko was merely repeating a proposal she has made before, her continued popularity in the run-up to the Oct. 31 vote is bringing greater scrutiny of her views.
Political analysts and some of her presidential rivals renewed their criticism of her nuclear-weapon idea.
‘It’s just nostalgia for a country which was big and poor, but which everyone feared,’ said Vyacheslav Pikhovshek, director of the Ukrainian Center for Independent Political Research, a Western-financed think tank.
Yury Kostenko, a Rukh Party presidential candidate, was even more harsh.
‘This is just another example of political nonsense, for which Vitrenko is very rich,’ said Kostenko, the nation’s former environment and nuclear safety minister.
Besides being a bad idea, Kostenko said, it is also not practical.
He said Ukraine has no independent production capacity or enough resources to build nuclear weapons alone – and never did, not even during the Soviet era.
‘Ukraine can either turn into a totalitarian state and secretly make such weapons like Iraq, or otherwise they can offer Russia to bring a part of its nuclear arsenal to Ukraine’s territory,’ Kostenko said.
Kostenko said that if Vitrenko does become the president and tries to restore the nation’s nuclear-weapon arsenal, ‘we will have to start an impeachment procedure against such a president.’
Vitrenko is not alone among the 15 presidential contenders in favoring re-acquisition of nuclear weapons.
Yury Karmazin, head of the Defenders of Motherland Party, goes even further: He believes weapons can be acquired without forming an alliance with Russia and Belarus.
Karmazin said that, given Ukraine’s proximity to so many NATO countries, the nation needs to constantly modernize its defenses.
‘The only way to preserve our sovereignty and increase our economic welfare in these conditions is to ensure ourselves against the kind of situations that took place in Yugoslavia, and that can appear in Crimea, for example,’ he told the Post in an interview on Sept. 7.
Communist Party leader Petro Symonenko, the third most popular presidential candidate among polled voters, said he might consider nuclear weapons if Ukraine is unable to defend itself in other ways.
When contacted by the Post after her Chernivtsi remarks, the normally outspoken Vitrenko – a member of parliament – refused to elaborate on her comments, which were picked up by international news-wire services.
In recent polling, Vitrenko has support from 23 percent of the electorate. That puts her second after the incumbent president, who has 30 percent in his quest for a second five-year term.
Vitrenko draws strength especially from older voters and those nostalgic for the stability of Soviet times.
She has offered several radical, anti-Western prescriptions for Ukraine’s ailments, and continues to repeat them on the campaign trail.
According to Intel news agency, Vitrenko on Sept. 1 accused other leftist presidential candidates of betraying their ideals. Her remarks were made in Sumy, a northeastern provincial capital of 305,000 people.
‘Now, when my victory in the presidential election is right around the corner, I am not going to give up the struggle,’ Vitrenko reportedly told people in Sumy.
She also repeated her warning that, in the first hours of her presidency, she would ‘block all the airports, railway stations, seaports and highways heading out of Ukraine, to prevent the possible escape of top Ukrainian officials and solid businessmen from the country.’
She also dismissed rumors that she will eventually throw her support to Kuchma. According to Intel news, Vitrenko said the people making such comments are ‘liars and frauds.’
