POLL: New Democrats most open to Ukraine getting nuclear arms

Ukraine, gripped in a war for national survival with a country with close to four times its population, needs some kind of game-changer to prevail. 

NATO membership would offer one solution, but existing members are nervous that that would mean a direct war with Russia. 

Superior Western weapons offer another path to victory. These have been supplied, but their numbers, and conditions on their use, have been limited because of Russia's nuclear threats, a dynamic that Ukraine is well aware of.

(As a legacy of the Soviet Union, Ukraine did have nuclear weapons when it became an independent state, but gave them up in 1994 under the Budapest Memorandum, an agreement in which the U.S., U.K. and Russia guaranteed Ukraine's security. What this agreement was worth has become obvious in recent years.)

Given what Ukraine has suffered in the years since, it's understandable that many in that country bitterly regret the decision to get rid of the country's nuclear arsenal. 

Last week at a NATO conference in Brussels, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky delivered an ultimatum of sorts, arguing that his country's security could only be guaranteed either by NATO membership or by developing its own nuclear arsenal. 

At the same time, the German newspaper Bild reported that Ukraine was within a few weeks of developing usable nuclear weapons, something Ukraine then refuted. 

Would Ukraine be justified in developing nuclear weapons?

In a recent online poll, 74 per cent of you said no. 

Men were more open to the idea than women:

There is perhaps a mild connection to income levels, but no clear connection to age:

There is a clear left-right divide — but one which will seem surprising to those of us who remember Cold War debates about nuclear weapons.

Not surprisingly, answers are also linked to views on Canadian support for Ukraine, and on increasing defence spending:

Responses are also linked to Canadian right/left wedge issues:

Dog people and cat people are more or less on the same page, but people who don't have or want pets are less open to Ukraine having nuclear arms: