РНБОУ National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine

Oleksandr Turchynov: We must work on the creation of a powerful deterrent weapon, which can effectively attack the enemy at any distance

Oleksandr Turchynov, Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, stresses the need to create weapons of strategic deterrence for Ukraine.

"We face a very serious task. As long as Ukraine does not become a member of NATO, and this is not an immediate perspective, we must only count on ourselves. What can prevent an aggressive nuclear country from a large-scale invasion? Only modern, powerful weapons of deterrence. Whether our partners like it or not, we've got to work on such a strategic weapon, a weapon that can effectively destroy the enemy at any distance," O.Turchynov told Interfax-Ukraine in an exclusive interview.

According to him, the end of last the century pacifism, "does not exist any longer, and probably will never be". "The Budapest memorandum, which gave us security guarantees in exchange for nuclear disarmament, is not worth the paper it is written on," - said O. Turchinov.

In his opinion, nobody has "neither moral, nor legal right" to prevent Ukraine from implementing such an initiative. "This is my position," said the Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine.