I am not sure whether this is widely known, but Ukraine in fact used to have nuclear warheads.

As Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union, it used to have significant elements of Soviet nuclear arsenal on its territory. In fact, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Ukraine held about one-third of the Soviet nuclear arsenal, as well as significant infrastructure allowing further design and production of weapons. At the time, Ukraine fielded 176 ICBM launchers with 1240 warheads, and additional 3 600 nuclear missiles.¹ This arsenal made Ukraine the third largest nuclear power on Earth, behind United States and Russia. But in 1994., Ukraine agreed to destroy these weapons and join the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, in exchange to receiving generous economic aid packages from the United States. In May 1996., last of Ukraine’s nuclear warheads had been transported to Russia.

¹ 130 SS-19 missiles with 6 warheads each, 46 SS-24 with 10 warheads each, 44 strategic bombers armed with 600 air-launched missiles, large number of gravity bombs and 3 000 tactical nuclear weapons, for a total of 5 000 warheads.

This was not welcome everywhere. Some nationalists in Ukraine and Kazakhstan were suspicious of Kremlin’s long-term intentions, and believed independent nuclear deterrent to be the best guarantee of safety. Volodymyr Tolubko, a former nuclear-base commander who had been elected to the Ukrainian Parliament, argued that Kyiv should never give up its atomic edge. In April 1992, he told the assembly that it was “romantic and premature” for Ukraine to declare itself a nonnuclear state and insisted that it should retain at least some of its long-range warheads and that such a residual nuclear force would be enough to deter any aggressor. A few international relations experts in the United States made similar arguments and derided the antinuclear campaign as shortsighted. In 1993., international relations theorist and University of Chicago professor John Mearsheimer published an article which included prediction that Ukraine without any nuclear deterrent was likely to be subjected to aggression by Russia, but this was largely dismissed at the time.

It is questionable whether Ukraine could have maintained nuclear capability, and how useful such weapons will have been against Russia. Still, fact remains that Ukraine agreed to become a non-nuclear weapons state after signing the 1994 Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances. This Memorandum was signed by United States, United Kingdom and Russia, and it read as follows:

Click to access 13943175580.pdf

Memorandum on Security Assurances in connection with Ukraine’s accession to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons​

Budapest, 5 December 1994​

The United States of America, the Russian Federation, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland,​

Welcoming the accession of Ukraine to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons as a non-nuclear-weapon State,​

Taking into account the commitment of Ukraine to eliminate all nuclear weapons from its territory within a specified period of time,​

Noting the changes in the world-wide security situation, including the end of the Cold War, which have brought about conditions for deep reductions in nuclear forces.​

Confirm the following:​

1. The United States of America, the Russian Federation, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, reaffirm their commitment to Ukraine, in accordance with the principles of the CSCE Final Act, to respect the Independence and Sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine.​

2. The United States of America, the Russian Federation, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, reaffirm their obligation to refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine, and that none of their weapons will ever be used against Ukraine except in self defense or otherwise in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations.​

3. The United States of America, the Russian Federation, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, reaffirm their commitment to Ukraine, in accordance with the principles of the CSCE Final Act, to refrain from economic coercion designed to subordinate to their own interest the exercise by Ukraine of the rights inherent in its sovereignty and thus to secure advantages of any kind.​

4. The United States of America, the Russian Federation, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, reaffirm their commitment to seek immediate United Nations Security Council action to provide assistance to Ukraine, as a nonnuclear-weapon State Party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, if Ukraine should become a victim of an act of aggression or an object of a threat of aggression in which nuclear weapons are used.​

5. The United States of America, the Russian Federation, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, reaffirm, in the case of the Ukraine, their commitment not to use nuclear weapons against any non-nuclear-weapon State Party 2 to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, except in the case of an attack on themselves, their territories or dependent territories, their armed forces, or their allies, by such a state in association or alliance with a nuclear weapon state.​

6. The United States of America, the Russian Federation, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland will consult in the event a situation arises which raises a question concerning these commitments.​

This Memorandum will become applicable upon signature.​

Signed in four copies having equal validity in the English, Russian and Ukrainian languages​

This document, while technically not a legal document, convinced Ukraine to give up 1700 nuclear weapons in exchange for, essentially, a load of hot air. Fundamentally, the document required the powers listed to:

1. Respect independence and sovereignty of Ukraine in its borders as they were at the time.
2. Not use force or any other means in an attempt to undermine sovereignty or territorial integrity of Ukraine.
3. Assist Ukraine should it be faced with fact or threat of use of nuclear weapons against it.
4. Carry out consultations should a situation bring into question any of those commitments.

Russia had violated all of these factors. It has directly attacked sovereignty of Ukraine in its current borders, and is using force to undermine territorial integrity of Ukraine. Putin has even threatened use of nuclear weapons, although not necessarily against Ukraine.

Now, it is a fact that the West has violated Ukrainian sovereignty first by bankrolling the Orange Revolution. As a result of that, NATO (or rather Soros) has essentially carried out a coup in the Ukraine. But this hardly justifies Putin’s actions. Rather, Central and Eastern Europe, from Poland to Ukraine, had ended up being stuck between two evils. And now, Ukraine got invaded because it had given up 1700 nuclear missiles, which was something worth far more than 1700 security assurances. Ukraine failed to rearm even after Russia had annexed Crimea in 2014., and only two minor parties had even called for nuclear rearmament. Ukraine is paying price in blood for such naivete, having given away its nuclear capability in exchange for essentially nothing.

And while calls had been made for nuclear rearmament, fact is that such a capability is not easily acquired. Nuclear weapons are not exactly sold on an international market, and Ukraine has no domestic ability to produce them. Acquiring such a capability might take decades. Meanwhile, the best that the West has come up with were economic sanctions, which Russia had been subject to for years already – to absolutely no effect, and also grandiose military deployments which are both provocative and ineffective. Removal of nuclear deterrent from former Soviet republics had given resurgent Russia an open playing field.

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