I'm Dom Nichols and this is Ukraine The Latest. Today, as Russia's state TV propagandists and government officials express delight at Donald Trump's cabinet selections, we ask how feasible it would be for Ukraine to develop its own nuclear weapon.

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Ukraine is. It's Thursday, the 14th of November, two years and 270 days since the full-scale invasion began. And today I'm joined by our associate comment editor Francis Durnley, nuclear, biological and chemical warfare expert Hamish de Breton-Gordon, and the Telegraph's director of audio and presenter on the Daily Tea podcast, Kamal Ahmed. I started with the latest news from the battlefield. Ukrainian air defences shot down 21 of 59 drones launched by Russia overnight, whilst 38 others were lost across Ukraine, the Air Force said. Civilians were killed and injured in Donetsk oblast, Governor Vadim Falashkin reported from there. Other injuries were caused in Sumy, Kharkiv and Herzon oblasts. Dnipro, Petrovsk, Kiev, Poltava, Luhansk, Mikolaev and Zaporizhia Oblasts were also attacked but no casualties reported from those areas. Now let's zoom into the northeast of the country around Kupiansk. We've been talking about it for a few days now. Ukrainian forces say they successfully repelled Russian attempts to break into the city of Kupiansk. It's in Kharkiv Oblast. This comes from Ukraine Form. That's Ukraine's state national news agency. They're reporting that this morning, citing the general staff of the Ukrainian armed forces. A spokesperson for the general staff, Andrei Kovalev, said all Russian attacks in this direction were successfully repelled. Russian invaders failed to enter Kupiansk. The city is under the control of Ukraine's armed forces. Okay, but still not great that they're having to put out statements like this, is it? The statement comes after the crowdsourced monitoring website Deep State said last night that some Russian units, including armoured vehicles and at least one tank, managed to enter Kubyanskk but then suffered heavy losses. Deep State's map today, if you have a look at it, shows Russian forces continue to press the town, closing in in particular from the north. So I said yesterday that Russian forces are almost like a pincer movement, but they're about 5km from the north of the city, 15 to 20-ish k's to the south. That northern effort seems to be having more success now mr kovalev said russian forces attempted to break through ukrainian defenses in the area yesterday afternoon attacking in four waves with 15 vehicles including tanks and armoured fighting vehicles so difference between an armoured fighting vehicle and an armoured personnel carrier a generally armoured personnel carrier think of it as a battle taxi just to get the troops into the fight an armored fighting vehicle sometimes called an infantry fighting vehicle can actually fight itself so it's generally got a great big gun it probably have some kind of anti-tank missile guided missile as well maybe some air defense stuff and it could with the kit that they're, almost certainly does have room for troops in the back as well. So an armoured fighting vehicle is more than a battle taxi, basically. But Mr. Kovalev says Ukrainian defenders destroyed all Russian armoured vehicles and a significant part of manpower. Now, he continued making a very serious allegation, if it's true. Mr Kovalev said that Russian troops were wearing Ukrainian uniforms, which is against the international rules of warfare. Perfidy, trying to pretend that you are something you're not, in the bracket of hiding under recognised symbols, such as the International Committee of the Red Cross and that kind of thing. Now, Russian troops have ramped up their efforts near Kupiansk from early September. We think they're only about two or three kilometres from the city's industrial outskirts in the northeast so like say five-ish k's from the city centre. Kiev Independent assessed that Moscow's forces are trying to reach the Osgil River. That divides the city in two running north south trying to get to the river before winter sets in. Now that river the Osgil river russia has reached that in much smaller numbers about 20 k south of kupyansk as i've said that is a formidable natural obstacle all rivers are all rivers can be a pain in the bum but this one around this area of northeast ukraine is very very wide hundreds of meters wide in places the very significant obstacle to movement runs for about 40 kilometers in this part of the country so Russia was able to push west up to the bank of the Oskill River including through the city of Kupyansk it makes it very very difficult for Ukrainian forces if they've had to withdraw to the other side to get back. Now elsewhere Russian forces continue pushing west on the northern and southern sides of the vovcha reservoir in the donbass but it's at minimal movement down there the reservoir is about five k's long and they're still only a few hundred meters from the eastern end i mentioned it because there has been movement so i don't want you to think that there's there's nothing at all happening there it's still extremely violent but not a lot of changing the lines just finally for me only because it's doing the rounds you'll hear this there is footage and reports of a british challenger 2 tank in service with the ukrainian armed forces being hit by a russian drone it's being shared by pro-russian bloggers some some attached the descriptor that the tank was destroyed i mean that's not what the footage shows. So what do we think happened? Russian Marines from the 155th Guards Naval Infantry Brigade are said to have destroyed the vehicle during fighting in Russia's Kursk region. That comes from prominent pro-Kremlin telegram channel Rybar. Now, unless they've got other footage that I've not seen, but we are citing, it's on our website, you'll find it, the footage that's done all the rounds, it's out on social media it's in other other news outlets it certainly does not show a tank being destroyed you see the image from what we're told is a first person view drone it is a challenger 2 tank and this is a brilliant disguise but i'm pretty certain it is a challenger 2 we don't know where or when the footage was taken this fpv drone hovers around for a bit and then flies into the turret. The tank is in a tree line. So not brilliantly well-sighted, but some effort to conceal it. I'm not necessarily disputing the footage. I absolutely dispute that it destroyed the tank. It could be... I've talked before about tanks. If you cover tanks with too much armor it's just not going to move anywhere you just can't you can't put all the armor everywhere across the whole tank so basically if the turret is pointing forward so the barrel is over the over the front of the tank imagine standing on top of the tank at the back of the turret hold your arms out in a in a sort of v shape that's where all armour is. It's in the frontal 60 degrees, basically, on the front of the turret, on the front of the hull, about a third of the way back over the wheels and what have you. So it's in the front, because that's generally the bit that you point towards the enemy. You can't put the armour absolutely everywhere. And that's why we've seen so much footage of FVV drones that are not ballistic. They're not just going on a trajectory. not like a missile you can guide it a little bit but it's it's going going down at speed fbv drone you can select the bit that you want to hit and they can choose the weakest part of a tank now that's not what we saw here this fbv drone hovered it didn't it wasn't just zooming straight in it moved around for a bit and then decided to go and hit the strongest part of the tank so unless it was a very inexperienced drone operator which could well be the case i'm very skeptical as to whether or not this either happened at all because i think it might be might be staged or if it did happen whether or not the tank was destroyed very surprised anyway enough about me francis a lot happening on the international sphere. Where do you want to take us first? Thanks, Tom. I said in yesterday's episode that one of the most

revealing things I think about the Republican Party at the moment is how despite winning their biggest electoral victory in decades and returning a former president to the White House for only the second time in American history after, right at home, Grover Cleveland. The Trump camp are still in campaign mode, releasing massive videos of policy announcements and making appointments with huge fanfare. That point, I think, has only been underscored by the new appointees made in the past 24 hours, easily the most controversial and radical made so far, with major implications for the world if they were to be approved by the Senate. The first is Tulsi Gabbard for Director of National Intelligence. She served in the US military in Iraq, served four terms as a Democratic congresswoman representing Hawaii, and ran for president, indeed, in the Democratic primary in 2020, before quitting the party in 22 and becoming an ardent supporter of Trump. On Ukraine specifically, she was one of those voices who most strongly championed the story about US-funded biolabs in Ukraine spreading deadly pathogens. In a video that was posted only days after the full-scale invasion, she was accused of parroting Russian disinformation and propaganda used to try and justify their illegal invasion. And it wasn't the first time that she's been seen as overly supportive of Russian and autocratic interests. She's been particularly vocal in her support of and meetings with Bashir al-Assad in Syria, a man also wanted for war crimes, as Hamish has spoken about many times, given his professional experience in that country. Now, just to give you a flavour of the anger at the time over the Ukraine story, Senator Mitt Romney accused her of pushing a treasonous lie over that story, which just gives you a dose of the strength of feeling. Now, in an equally striking take, she once posted on social media on the Now, anniversary could make, of course, critiques of Japan as one can with many states. For example, Japan on their legacy in the Second World War and not really publicly coming to terms with the scale of the war crimes that they committed would be one. But Japan is a transformed country in the past 80 years. It's democratic, it's friendly, and it has proved itself a vital ally of the United States in the Pacific and indeed in Europe with the support that it has provided above and beyond for Ukraine. Then, of course, there's the AUKUS pact, which has been put together recently, of which Japan is also involved in those conversations. So that line about the dangers of a remilitarized Japan is straight out of the Chinese propaganda playbook, which in and of itself, I think, is quite revealing. at the moment that Britain and other countries are signing PACs like AUKUS and like those with Japan directly that were associated with those kind of dialogues in the Pacific, it is quite extraordinary that for the director of intelligence, you could have somebody who holds such an unusually sceptic opinion of Japan. And so I say this with honesty, that the US defence establishment should be under no illusions. If she is appointed to the post, the sharing of vital intelligence between Western partners would almost certainly be constrained, as there are many senior figures, publicly and privately today, saying that they simply would not feel comfortable sharing certain intelligence with a country that had her as Director of National Intelligence. Some are speculating, given all that, that her appointment and that of Matt Gaetz for Attorney General is merely an attempt by Trump to reward loyalty and that he knows the Senate will never approve them as the candidates. Perhaps. But even the prospect of their appointment has Russian state media cock a hoop this morning, calling the choices wonderful. At the same time, Fox News reports Trump may soon appoint a Ukrainian peace envoy to lead negotiations, citing multiple undisclosed sources. One saying you're going to see a very senior special envoy, some with a lot of credibility, who will be given a task to find a resolution to get a peace settlement. That will happen in short order. So in that context, you can see why those who are more anxious about what Trump means for Ukraine are becoming increasingly so, despite the appointment of some of those more hawkish types in the administration earlier in the week. But again, I think it's too early to say what the real ramifications are going to be of that Trump victory. I think there will be unpredictable outcomes, put it that way, in the European context. But nonetheless, it's vital that we do continue to look at every one of these appointments and what they might tell us at this vitally important moment. Now, in other news, as Germany gears up for its own election, Chancellor Olaf Scholz is fighting for his political life and interestingly and revealingly is doubling down on the idea here of him being the prudent chancellor who ensured peace and avoided, do you want to guess the word, escalation. I repeat, he said in a speech yesterday, I'm against allowing to fire weapons supplied by us far into Russia. I won't change my position on Taurus. And I should say that that was met by some applause in the crowd that he was addressing in the parliament and some shaking of heads. To many, it will seem simply remarkable that this notion of avoiding escalation continues to be said without irony, as it is blatantly obvious for those of us following this war so closely, and of course I include you at home in that, that the avoidance of escalation by the West has simply enabled Russia to continue escalation of its own brazenly in response to that weakness iran being able to be brought in and using its weapons and now with north korean soldiers fighting on european soil now in that context there are reports that german mps have privately been briefed by the federal civil protection agency that if ukraine crumbles within the next six months, millions of Ukrainians would head west, a subject we've spoken about several times on the podcast. The official estimate is 10 million, two of them to Germany. The unofficial is up to 18 million, with three to four going to Germany. Staggering, staggering and humbling numbers, I would posit. And it is revealing, I think, of the obstinacy amongst some of the political class in Germany, that there has really been no profound movement for the best part of at least three years from the initial first months of the invasion, where promises were made, but not really delivered in the manner that was expected, given the Zeitung Wender that Schultz pledged. Such as things are, though, on the front line. And given that context, the big story today here in Britain is what I think will be the main focus of our episode today, which is that the Times have an exclusive story that Ukraine could develop a rudimentary nuclear bomb within months if Trump withdraws US military assistance. This is coming from a briefing paper prepared for the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense. So I've got, as we have, some caveats to throw in on this story. But nonetheless, let's just report it first. The Times writes, according to the report, the country would quickly be able to build a basic device from plutonium with a similar technology to that seen in 1945. Creating a simple bomb as the US did within the framework of the Manhattan Project would not be a difficult task, the document reads. With no time to build and run large facilities required to enrich uranium, wartime Ukraine would have to rely instead on using plutonium extracted from spent fuel rods taken from Ukraine's nuclear reactors. So that's the essence of the story. But after those reports, Kyiv very quickly put a statement out saying that Kyiv is committed to the treaty on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons. We do not possess, develop or intend to acquire them. Ukraine works closely with the International Atomic Agency and is fully transparent to its monitoring, which rules out the use of nuclear materials for military purposes. Now, I know we're going to look at this report in detail in a moment, because I think there's a lot of people getting a bit carried away, frankly, with this. But the fact is, it is being talked about. And that's the story here. And I think that was intended to be the story here with the creation of this document and its proliferation by certain entities, no doubt, in Ukraine and in the government. And we should remember, of course, that Zelensky made remarks as well, alluding to the fact that one day Ukraine would need to have nuclear weapons. But no doubt, you, Dom, and Hamish have a lot of thoughts on this story, and we're going to go into greater detail. But I just wanted to give the very much top line assessment of it.

Well, thanks, Francis. Let's stay on that last story there. I saw this report. I mean, straight away, any report that uses phrases like creating a simple atomic bomb. You know, I don't think there's anything simple about this at all. And I see the reference to using spent nuclear fuel rods because the thought of Ukraine now being able to source all the precursor materials. I just don't believe this. I don't think it's happening. I don't even know if it's possible. But then what do I know? That's why we've got Hamish. Please do dial us in here. I don't know if it's even worth talking about. Well, if Kiev had a nuclear weapon, I don't know if we can even get that far is this just nonsense this story hamish or is there any any realistic prospect of being able to from a standing star unless you've had some super duper highly top secret tippity tip top no one ever knows about it process going on for the last decade ukraine aren't going to be able to develop a nuclear bomb in short order, are they, Hamish? Well, let's unpack it. First of all, guys,

many, many congratulations for winning pot of the year. I think it was yesterday or the day before. Absolutely brilliant. And I'm sure David will be looking down with immense satisfaction, as he should do. So fantastic effort. Brilliant stuff. on to this story you might remember about three weeks ago zelensky i think was at the european summit and suggested that ukraine might need to acquire its own nuclear weapons i think we've discussed before ukraine used to have about 1700 warheads which is about four times more than the UK's currently got. When it was part of the Soviet bloc, the Budapest menimitum in 1994 agreed between ourselves, UK, US and Russia, took those away from them. But Russia and ourselves guaranteed Ukraine's peace. So a little bit of irony there. Ukraine, of course, as we know, is a nuclear power, as in power stations, has the biggest nuclear power station in Europe. Zaporozhye, currently under Russian control. So they have a lot of nuclear knowledge. Now, I think one doesn't want to be too Machiavellian about this and just look at the facts. Where are they starting from, I think, is a question. If they are starting from scratch, certainly this would be a very difficult challenge. Having said that, are there still nuclear scientists around from 30 years ago? Yes, probably. Is all that information stored in some storage facility? Yes, it probably is. So number one point is I think they're not starting from scratch. But let's look at the situation itself. The report that was published is suggesting that they would use spent plutonium-239. Yeah, that is a viable isotope to use in a nuclear device. And Fat which was the nagasaki bomb was a plutonium device and a fairly straightforward one do they have enough of it yeah they've got seven tons of it and they need about six kilos however the spent plutonium fuel is also has other chemicals in it and to be a viable nuclear weapon fuel would need to be reprocessed. Ukraine currently doesn't have any reprocessing plants. There are a couple of pieces out in the media at the moment that it would take four or five years to make a reprocessing plant. There are other stories that actually they could probably do it in four to six months. And I think the report suggests that Ukraine could have a viable nuclear weapon in four to six months. So that is possible. Now, when we look at what sort of device we're talking about here, it is very unlikely they could make a viable nuclear weapon, certainly to match anything that Russia or the US has at the moment. The report suggests the yield of this device would be one or two kilotons, so 1,000 or 2,000 tons of conventional explosive. There was also a report, a chap called Dr. Lewis did a bit of a piece on Twitter X this morning in response to the Times report. He does mention a report in the 70s, a US report saying the viability of using plutonium to make a basic device and the conclusion was yes you could probably do that and it would be viable so in theory a small device but what is one 2 000 tons conventional explosive people might remember the explosion in beirut two two or three years when 3,000 tonnes of uranium nitrate went up. It's that sort of explosion. So pretty massive. I think interestingly in the report and other commentary coming out of Kyiv over the last few days that the reason given is that Trump withdraws support, they'll need it in order to attack airfields. And they're saying one of these devices would take out an airfield and missiles or aircraft on it which are attacking them at the moment. If one was being Machiavellian one would also say that storm shadows, Galvan Taurus missiles would do the same which currently Ukraine doesn't have the permission to use outside its own borders. Just a little bit more on the device so we're not talking about what we'd call a nuclear weapon strapped on a ballistic missile. In theory, the Ukrainians don't have a ballistic missile that could carry this device, but they certainly have missiles and they certainly have drones that they could strap it to. I think what might be viable in this area would be what we call an improvised nuclear device. In the past, Islamic State and other terror groups have tried to create these devices, but have been unable to because it's too difficult. And actually, for an improvised nuclear device, it would probably only be viable with enriched uranium. And although Ukraine has a lot of uranium for its power stations, it doesn't have the ability to enrich it. Basically, uranium nuclear power stations enriched about 20 percent uranium for a nuclear weapon needs to be enriched about 90 percent and it is not an insignificant task turning 20 to 90 percent and ukraine would not have that ability to do at the moment if you put all those things together, if everything works, and if Ukraine does have the sort of corporate knowledge and understanding that it used to have, it is possible that in six to 12 months, they could produce some sort of small, in inverted commas, nuclear device based on plutonium t39 which could create a pretty massive explosion but i sort of agree with the tone of everybody else and this this is pretty highly unlikely and actually the story or the desire coming out of kiev is is really probably not to create a nuclear device and everything that comes up with that, but more to make sure that people like our Prime Minister and Macron and others unshackle Storm Shadow Scalp and Taras so they can do the job, which perhaps the Ukrainians are envisaging that a small nuclear device could possibly do for them. Over.

Thanks, Hamish. A couple of questions for me, if I may. You're talking about the size of what might be a viable device in a few months' time. You say two or three kilotons, two or three thousand tons of conventional TNT. And just for comparison, the Hiroshima bomb, 1945, was 15 kilotons. So, you know, a fraction of that size. Firstly, what now for the nuclear non-proliferation treaty? If countries around the world see, you know what, I don't actually have to have a massive conventional force with all the cost and all the rest of it that that takes. Look at North Korea. Look at how stymied Ukraine is. All I need to do is develop a nuclear bomb. So I think the longer this war goes on with the issues that we're seeing and talking about, the more the nuclear non-proliferation treaty is just being ripped up. Invite your comment on that. And secondly, when the nuclear power station at Chernobyl imploded, what, 86 was that? 86? In terms of the radiation, the soil and the problem of radiation, are we able to think about what kind of comparative size a nuclear bomb would have to be to produce that amount of radiation with all the decades-long problems that comes after it or am i not able to think of it in those terms yeah

i know good good questions there tom nuclear periphery i actually absolutely agree you know the fact that it would appear that russia is trading nuclear know-how with the Iranians and the North Koreans for manpower and weaponry is making a bit of a mockery of the non-proliferation treaty. But it requires, you know, permanent members of the Security Council and the Security Council of the UN to absolutely stamp on these things. But when you've got the Russians as a permanent member and you've got these others on the Security Council, it makes life really difficult, which is why it's so important that the US and ourselves and the French are absolutely demonstrative about it and make sure that it doesn't happen. And I hope the new team in Whitehall and Westminster are, you know, onto Kiev and saying, look, let's talk about nukes don't worry we're gonna come good on the storm shadow when it comes to radiation i commented for another organization yesterday on list truss's latest addition to a book where apparently in sort of october 2022 in her short term at number 10 she spent most of it worrying about radiation and fallout from a potential nuclear blast in Ukraine, which she thought was going to happen, seemed pretty ridiculous. When we go back to Chernobyl, I mean, that was a massive nuclear accident. And radiation did fall in North Wales. And some Northwellian sheep farmers couldn't sell their sheep for 10 years. Radiation, depending what it is, is how harmful it is and that's why detection and monitoring is so important you know most nuclear isotopes have a half-life in other words how quickly they decay you look at nagasaki now you've had this device you say 15 to 20 kilotons you know people are now living there so it does decay and away. And you can what we call remediate buildings in the earth. I mean, it does. Remediation in this case actually means digging up, taking away and putting somewhere else where it won't necessarily harm things. So the whole radiation thing is a big issue. And what I should have mentioned also, my previous piece, is the dirty bomb scenario, which, again, we've heard a hell of a lot about in Ukraine, particularly from the Russians, saying that, you know, they're going to be dirty bombs. What would be possible is if you had a load of plutonium 239 and just blew it up without creating a nuclear chain reaction explosion, you would spread a lot of radiation around. And that is what is termed a dirty bomb. But it really depends what it is and what concentration it is i think something going off in ukraine is not something liz truss should have been spending all night worrying about because whatever radiation did reach the uk would probably be very dispersed except for particular areas and i you know reference the sheep farmer and farmers in north wales in the 80s and 90s would not have a huge impact so not a really clear answer to your question dom but hopefully we'll give people a bit of food for thought lovely

thanks hamish now i'm delighted to welcome to the pod for the first time our uh telegraph director of audio and presenter on the Daily Tea, Kamal Ahmed.