Ukraine does not advocate for the provision of nuclear weapons, which it renounced under the Budapest Memorandum in 1994, but did not receive effective security guarantees then and therefore insists on NATO membership now, says Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

"We really did give up all our nuclear weapons at one time. It was many years ago. We should have exchanged for NATO membership. This is my opinion. I shared it with Biden and Trump," Zelenskyy told reporters on Monday.

He stressed that there is no talk of Ukraine restoring its nuclear arsenal. "We are not asking to provide us with or return nuclear weapons. Yes, we are not asking for this. My position is very clear. We gave, but we did not receive anything. And we only received a full-scale war and many victims, so today we have only one way out. Therefore, we need NATO, because we do not have weapons that can stop Putin," said the head of the Ukrainian state.

He noted that there are no other security guarantees for Ukraine that are commensurate with NATO. "We gave up nuclear weapons. We did not get NATO membership. And can you, I asked them, can you name me other allies or another ‘security umbrella’ or something like that, some security measures and guarantees for Ukraine that would be commensurate with NATO? No one can tell me," Zelenskyy said.