After the fall of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, Ukraine was left with one of the world’s largest nuclear stockpiles. The third-largest nuclear power, it inherited around 5,000 nuclear weapons, including intercontinental missiles that could deliver thermonuclear warheads. After having this powerful arsenal, Ukraine took the unprecedented step of relinquishing its nuclear weapons according to the ET reports. This decision, as it determined the fate of the nation, would go on to set the stage for future conflict with Russia.
Ukraine’s bold decision to give up nuclear weapons
The denuclearization decision of Ukraine was made on the basis of myriad considerations. Although the nation had physically possessed the weapons, it hadn’t possessed the control to utilize them. Russia, possessing the launch codes and control systems, possessed control over the weapons. It rendered Ukraine’s nuclear arsenal meaningless as a deterrent since they couldn’t utilize them by themselves.
In addition, having such a large nuclear arsenal was financially unsustainable for the newly independent state of Ukraine, which was only just stabilizing its economy. The financial burden of keeping, securing, and possibly controlling operation of the weapons was too great, and to attempt to do so would have been likely to precipitate a diplomatic crisis with Russia and the West. Geopolitical risks and economic costs dissuaded Ukraine from giving up its nuclear arsenal.
Ukraine to dismantle nuclear weapons under Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction
In response to international pressure to proliferate nuclear weapons, in 1991 the United States launched the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) program, funding and technical assistance to enable former Soviet republics to dismantle nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons. International pressure to dismantle nuclear stockpiles in former Soviet republics, including Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine, resulted in the creation of the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) Program in 1991.
Ukraine, despite all this, in 1994 signed the Budapest Memorandum, a significant treaty, in which the United Kingdom, Russia, and the United States guaranteed Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity in return for its giving up nuclear weapons. The treaty also guaranteed that these countries would not threaten or use military action against Ukraine and would call for UN action in the case of Ukraine being threatened at any time.
Budapest Memorandum’s security guarantees tested by Russia’s actions
Whereas initially the Budapest Memorandum was welcomed as a monumental step toward global nuclear disarmament, assurances laid out in the agreement began to lose legitimacy with shifts in political loyalties. Academics had long advised, nonetheless, that the preservation of nuclear weapons by Ukraine was required to protect from probable Russian attack, since Ukraine being geopolitically situated half-way between Russia and Europe. These concerns increasingly caught momentum since Vladimir Putin’s return to the presidency.
Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and its backing of the separatists in eastern Ukraine dispelled any illusions about the validity of the Budapest Memorandum. While the memorandum was supposed to provide guarantees, Russia’s move proved that commitments by nuclear powers can be unilaterally renounced with impunity. Steven Pifer, a former US ambassador to Ukraine, said there was a two-way failure by Washington and Kyiv to anticipate the ambitions of a rising Russia.
Ukraine’s weakness highlighted after surrendering nuclear arms
The annexation of Crimea and the war in Eastern Ukraine revealed Ukraine’s weakness after it had given up its nuclear status. Russia’s action proved that international security guarantees, especially those offered by nuclear powers, were not reliable in the presence of aggressive actions by a great power.
With the growing Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the world observed how Ukraine’s sovereignty was targeted head-on by a nuclear nation. Ukraine’s countermove came in the form of requesting and accepting Western military aid. It was about high-end weapons and intel sharing, but it left more questions on larger Ukrainian security concerns. The Budapest Memorandum that had provided for protection earlier hadn’t managed to deter the violence it was intended to prevent.
Ukraine’s security dilemma amid growing Russian aggression
The ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict illustrates the vulnerabilities of Ukrainian security in an order of the world where nuclear forces are not dependable guarantors of peace. The conflict has caused immense suffering and devastation on the human dimension, posing severe questions about Ukrainian territorial integrity and whether international assurances of security could reasonably deter future aggression.
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