An overnight news story cited a report suggesting Ukraine could develop a rudimentary nuclear bomb within months if Donald Trump withdraws US military aid.

According to the report, the country could use stockpiled plutonium to build a core device with technology similar to the “Fat Man” bomb dropped on Nagasaki in 1945.

“Creating a simple atomic bomb, as the United States did with the Manhattan Project, would not be a difficult task 80 years later,” said the document, written by Ukraine’s National Institute for Strategic Studies, a government center for action research. as an advisory body to the presidential office and the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine.

However, the claims have drawn derision among nuclear experts, who suggest the plan outlined in the report is effectively impossible to achieve.

“It’s totally crazy,” said Pavel Podvig, an expert on Russian nuclear forces and international arms control.

“Apparently, the argument is that Ukraine has seven tons of plutonium that it can use to build ‘hundreds of weapons.’

“However, all of this plutonium is in spent fuel. To remove it, a reprocessing facility is needed, which Ukraine does not have.”

He also pointed to a number of technical factors that prevent such a plan, along with a number of international rules and safeguards that make it unrealistic.

His view was echoed by Dr. Jeffrey Lewis, professor of arms control and member of the US State Department’s International Security Advisory Committee.

Responding to the report that Ukraine could develop the rudimentary bomb, he said: “Probably not possible. At least not soon.”

To do that, he said, Ukraine “would have to build a separation plant, which would take years and cost hundreds of billions.”

“While it is not technically impossible for Ukraine to harvest plutonium from spent fuel, it would not be something Ukraine could do quickly or cheaply,” he said.

“Building a reprocessing facility would probably take years — years of exposure to Russian attacks.”