China has told Moscow, in no soft terms, to drop the nuclear talk. That is Volodymyr Zelensky’s account, and he says the message came through European leaders rather than from Beijing itself.
Asked by Radio NV about it, the Ukrainian president said several of those leaders had recently raised the subject with Chinese officials. “China responded very seriously, harshly and unequivocally to allegations in Russian media about the possible use of nuclear weapons,” Zelensky said, relaying what they had told him. “It seems to me this is the first time Beijing has responded so clearly and forcefully.”
He went further. In his telling, the Chinese side stated “in an ultimatum that there can be no discussion of the use of nuclear weapons.” Speaking to reporters on Thursday, he tied the Chinese message to a specific worry: Russian media voices asking whether Moscow should answer Ukrainian strikes on its territory with nuclear weapons.
Where he heard it
The NATO summit in Ankara was the setting. European leaders raised China’s possible part in ending the war in bilateral meetings there, Zelensky said, and that is where he learned of Beijing’s intervention.
He also met US President Donald Trump on the sidelines. China came up, along with the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East. “President Trump and I discussed China, its role in this war, its participation or potential participation, and its capabilities,” Zelensky said. He declined to say more: “with all due respect, I would like the details of this particular conversation to remain between me and the US president.”
The account is secondhand: Zelensky relaying what European leaders say Chinese officials told them.
The rhetoric behind it
Nuclear warnings from Russian figures have been piling up. In early June, Dmitry Medvedev, the former president who now serves as deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, said a nuclear apocalypse is “realistically possible.” Speaking at a federal educational marathon called “Znanie,” he argued that Russia must stay ready, which is why “our country has a triad of strategic nuclear forces.” Medvedev has issued a string of such warnings since the full-scale invasion in 2022 and has repeatedly accused Western countries of raising the risk of direct confrontation by arming Kyiv.
On June 9, a member of the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly publicly proposed using nuclear weapons against Ukraine, complaining that Russia’s “special military operation” was not going to plan. Konstantin Malofeev, a pro-Kremlin oligarch, followed on June 21 by urging nuclear strikes on “terminals, fiber-optic cables in the Atlantic, and with shrapnel missiles in space” to cripple Ukrainian command and control.
Some analysts do not read these statements as policy. Steven Pifer, a former US ambassador to Ukraine, told Kyiv Post that Medvedev says things that are “borderline crazy or just outright crazy,” and that Moscow often uses nuclear threats to intimidate, hoping to erode Western and European backing for Ukraine.
Sources
- Zelensky Says China Issued Rare Ultimatum Rejecting Russian Nuclear Weapons Threats
- Zelensky: China harshly reacts to Russian nuclear media threats
- Zelenskyy: China urged Putin not to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine
