Kyiv gave up its nuclear weapons in return for security assurances

https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-ukraine-was-betrayed-in-budapest-russia-vladimir-putin-us-uk-volodymyr-zelensky-nuclear-weapons-11645657263

by bko • 4 years ago

107 55 4 years ago

wsj.com

edmcnulty1013• 4 years ago

I wonder if Russia would have invaded if Ukraine had nuclear weapons.

nso95• 4 years ago

That's why it's called a nuclear deterrent

spacemanmatt• 4 years ago

Or more formally, mutually-assured destruction.

edmcnulty1013• 4 years ago

Makes you wonder if every war with a nuclear power, will escalate to mutually assured destruction.

37• 4 years ago

From Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_and_Ukraine

Pavlo Rizanenko, a member of the Ukrainian parliament told USA Today that Ukraine may have to arm themselves with their own nuclear weapons if the United States and other world leaders do not hold up their end of the agreement. He said "We gave up nuclear weapons because of this agreement. Now, there's a strong sentiment in Ukraine that we made a big mistake." He also said that, "In the future, no matter how the situation is resolved in Crimea, we need a much stronger Ukraine. If you have nuclear weapons, people don't invade you."

N19PEDL22• 4 years ago

I would be curious to know what is the nuclear latency of Ukraine, i.e. the technological distance from having a complete working device.

Ukraine operates 4 nuclear reactors and Soviet-era expertise on nuclear weapons is likely still present in the form of (retired) engineers and scientists, so they are likely able to develop it again.

This said, building a credible nuclear deterrence also requires at least one element of the nuclear triad, i.e. the capability to "deliver the gadget". In practical terms, more expertise to gain and more investments to do.

_fat_santa• 4 years ago

Probably, even for something as severe as an invasion, I highly doubt that Ukraine would have used Nukes against Russia. Considering how close together all the countries are in that region, unless they pointed it way inside Russia, the collateral damage would have been insane.

mstipetic2• 4 years ago

You think a single nuke would damage several countries?

colechristensen• 4 years ago

The fallout from air bursts really isn’t that bad. There were 65 above ground tests in Nevada before they went underground and then were stopped all together.

The destruction on site is of course horrific, but far afield the concerns are fairly minimal, unless you’re actively trying to cause fallout.

988747• 4 years ago

Nuclear weapons come in all shapes and sizes. Hell, there was a bazooka with nuclear warhead once. Such things can come handy when you need to, for example, destroy few dozens of Russian tanks at once, and since they are not ballistic missiles you do not risk starting Armageddon with them.

chernevik2• 4 years ago

No way to know, of course, but the risks would have been much higher.

bloak• 4 years ago

More information is required to answer that question, but I can imagine two countries that both have a policy of "no first use" could have a conventional war, including an invasion, without the conflict becoming nuclear. Losing a conventional war might be much better than "winning" a nuclear one.

stjohnswarts5• 4 years ago

I don't think so, I would rather be dead than face what is probably coming to the Ukrainian people under Russian (Putin's) oppression.

RicoElectrico• 4 years ago

I've heard an opinion that this was illusion of choice - Ukraine would have had the nukes taken from them anyway - and this was just to save face.

inglor_cz2• 4 years ago

More likely, the very maintenance cost would prove infeasible.

Ukrainian HDP is slightly larger than Slovakia's, and maintaining nukes for decades ain't easy. You need to control the complete supply chain for some very exotic spare parts.

1024core• 4 years ago

You don't need to maintain _all_ the 1800 nukes; you can just maintain a credible deterrent. See, for example, Pakistan, which has > 100 nukes.

KptMarchewa• 4 years ago

North Korea can afford not only maintanence, but also development of their own nukes.

You need to control the complete supply chain for some very exotic spare parts.

...if you want 100% guarantees of their success, sure. But not everything has to be maintained to the US Air Force standards. At the very least, dirty bombs are successful too.

Darmody• 4 years ago

Back when the USSR fell they barely could maintain their own stock.

I read somewhere that the US even gave them money to keep the nukes safe.

awb• 4 years ago

That’s pretty close to what Wikipedia says: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_and_Ukraine

The United States would also not have made Ukraine an exception when it came to the denuclearization of other post-Soviet states such as Belarus and Kazakhstan.[9] The deterrent value of the nuclear weapons in Ukraine was also questionable, as Ukraine would have had to spend 12 to 18 months to establish full operational control over the nuclear arsenal left by the Russians.[9] The ICBMs also had a range of 5,000–10,000 km (initially targeting the United States), which meant that they could only have been re-targeted to hit Russia's far east.[9] The air-launched cruise missiles (ALCMs) left by the Russians had been disabled by the Russians during the collapse of the Soviet Union, but even if they had been reconfigured and made to work by the Ukrainians, it is unlikely that they would have had a deterrent effect.[9] Had Ukraine decided to establish full operational control of the nuclear weapons, it would have faced sanctions by the West and perhaps even a withdrawal of diplomatic recognition by the United States and other NATO allies.[9] Ukraine would also likely have faced retaliatory action by Russia.[9] Ukraine would also have struggled with replacing the nuclear weapons once their service life expired, as Ukraine did not have a nuclear weapons program.

harambae• 4 years ago

The ICBMs also had a range of 5,000–10,000 km (initially targeting the United States), which meant that they could only have been re-targeted to hit Russia's far east.[9]

I never knew ICBMs had a minimum range as well as a maximum. Interesting.

calyth20183• 4 years ago

Both Russia and Ukraine at that point needed humanitarian help to stave off famine.

Ukraine itself does not have the expertise to maintain the nukes, according to Sarotte's book. https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300259933/not-one-inch

stjohnswarts5• 4 years ago

They could have hired on some Russians for 2-3x the pay, and maintain a much smaller number of nukes. Just enough to take out all the major cities in Russia would have been plenty.

bko2• 4 years ago

Archive:

https://web.archive.org/web/20220224101533/https://www.wsj.c...

also useful link:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_and_Ukraine

syki• 4 years ago

It’s hard to give meaningful security assurances when the powers involved have nuclear weapons. Ukraine is far more important to Russia than it is to the U.S. Clearly the U.S. is not willing to go to war with a nuclear power over Ukraine. Treaties are only as useful as the willingness of the signatories to abide by them and/or enforce them.

Miraste• 4 years ago

That's the point: nuclear weapons are a much better guarantee of safety than treaties and assurances. Compare what happened to Libya and Iraq to Iran and North Korea and it's clear that the only way to be secure in the modern age is to get nukes as fast as possible, and ignore any threats or offers to the contrary.

chernevik2• 4 years ago

True, but we could have done a great deal more to help Ukraine. Keeping Europe energy independent from Russian for one thing, and better supplying the Ukrainians with arms for another.

dmarlow• 4 years ago

This is sending a strong message that everyone must own nukes to control their own destiny.

shrimp_emoji• 4 years ago

The only way to be safe without nukes is to have some kind of "world police", but nobody wants that (especially naive populists).

hirundo• 4 years ago

And then the danger is from the world police.

calyth20183• 4 years ago

It's rational to do so, even if there are pressing issues within.

And of course, the world's going to say any country wishing to do that is insane.

philistine2• 4 years ago

"Every great House of the Landsraad has a hidden cache of family atomics."

tibbydudeza• 4 years ago

North Korea is actually right - promises and agreements are worth their weight on paper.

tcbawo• 4 years ago

The possibility of a nuclear skirmish between neighboring countries seems awful. A poor country with a fragile government should not be entrusted with nuclear weapons. Imagine what the terrorist organizations of the last 25 years would do with access to such weapons.

lenkite• 4 years ago

Russia considers the Budapest Memorandum as broken far earlier - after the Euromaidan coup/revolution (depending on your point of view).

robert_foss3• 4 years ago

How convenient for Russia.

yucky• 4 years ago

Yeah I believe their argument from day 1 has been that was fomented and partially financed by the US, and that their "meddling in 2016" was a response to that.

stjohnswarts5• 4 years ago

Putin considers any agreement as toilet paper when sized up beside his white supremacist ambitions.

bko2• 4 years ago

Is there a list of countries that underwent some major form of disarnament? I know Libya also had chemical and nuclear program that they gave up, only to be overthrown by the West in 2011

From just a few examples in my head, disarnament doesn't work out compared to holding on to your capabilities. Can anyone more knowledge comment on the track record of disarnament?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syria_and_weapons_of_mass_dest...

robert_foss3• 4 years ago

So Ukraine agreed to denuclearization in exchange for having it's borders recognized and protected by the US and Russia.

It is rather clear the an agreement written by the US is not worth the paper ot os written on.

Iran learned this about denuclearization. Ukraine learned it in 2014.

stjohnswarts5• 4 years ago

Unless the US Congress passes a treaty with 2/3 vote, yeah it's pretty much useless when a different party president enters the scene. Then again Russia has shown it will not abide by any agreements under the same dictator it has had for 20 years.

robert_foss3• 4 years ago

The internal workings of the US is not relevant to the signing of any of the treaties. It may affect if the US chooses to uphold it's obligations, but the Budapest memorandum[1] was certainly signed by the US.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Securit...

kerneloftruth• 4 years ago

If Ukraine had kept its nukes it would have been destabilizing. It was a big concern at the fall of the Soviet union about all the "loose nukes" in the unstable, newly free former members. It was wisely deemed best to not have a bunch of new (unstable) nuclear states in the club.

We keep calling it a "democracy" to invoke sentiment and sympathy. The fact is that they're quite corrupt, and them having nukes would have been foolish for Europe and everyone.

Kyiv gave up its nuclear weapons in return for security assurances

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