[drran]

Ukraine had no nuclear weapons 8 years ago. Ukraine has all required equipment and nuclear materials (weapon grade Uranium, Plutonium) to create nuclear weapons at will. Are you sure that Ukraine has no will to defend itself?

> The US and Russia have danced around very carefully in Syria; the only direct conflict I know of involved Russian "mercenaries".

Turkey shot Russian airplane.

> NATO operations in Ukraine carry a very large risk of accidental escalation, in addition to Putin's threats.

I'm sorry to inform you, but war between two nuclear nations has much larger risk of escalation when NATO will play the role of coward.

[rixed]

According to what I've read and watched on YouTube (such as the interesting, if inevitably biased series "Russian Roulette" by ViceNews that I recommend you watch with your brain on and Wikipedia ready to look up every mentioned character), the Ukrainian army had such difficulties with basic supplies that I can't imagine them developing actionable weaponry at all, conventional or nuclear.

Even if some scientists could technically build a bomb, the hard part with nuclear arsenal is not the bomb itself but the launching device.