A nuclear weapon in Ukraine’s arsenal would be powerless to stop Russia, which has an overwhelming military advantage, including in the quantity of such weapons, Vladimir Zelensky's top advisor has said.

In a post on Telegram on Thursday, Mikhail Podoliak, the advisor to the Ukrainian leader's head of office, dismissed speculation that Ukraine could develop a nuclear weapon to check Russian advances, despite earlier media reports suggesting that some officials in Kiev were contemplating the idea. He stressed that “it is important not to confuse the concept of ‘nuclear weapons’ with an ‘optimal deterrence option.’ Podoliak added that even if Ukraine were to create such a weapon in the foreseeable future – which he insists is not on the table – it “cannot deter the empire with the second largest nuclear arsenal in the world.”