june 1, 2024 – Translated from Ukrainian via Google and OFP

On June 1, 1996, the last nuclear and strategic weapons that came to Ukraine after the collapse of the USSR were sent to Russia.

This is how the Budapest memorandum signed at the end of 1994 by the then president Leonid Kuchma on the so-called security guarantees allegedly provided by the USA, Britain and the same Russia in exchange for renouncing the nuclear status and everything related to it, resembles the historical WAS project.

On June 1, 1996, the last nuclear missiles were transported from Ukraine to Russia. And from the very next day, our country lost the status of a nuclear state, the publication notes.

“Well, what about “guarantees”? Promises to respect Independence…”, WAS asks.

What the Ukrainian army lost

Then the newly created Armed Forces got rid of not only nuclear warheads, but also, in fact, the means of launching them (launchers, in particular of the mine type)
and the means of delivery to the intended targets – missile carriers, strategic combat aircraft. Together they constituted the third largest nuclear arsenal in the world.

As of 1991, Ukraine had 176 launch mines (the last one was destroyed in 2001, now there is only one and it has been turned into a museum). Their network from north to south, from the thickets of Polissia to the steppes of the Black Sea, stretched across the entire Right Bank, and the closest similar objects to Kyiv were located in the classified military town “Makariv-1” 100 km from the Ukrainian capital.

In addition to the Budapest Memorandum, the Ukrainian side also undertook a number of strategic disarmament obligations. We are talking about the American Nunn-Lugar program, the Massandriv Agreements, the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, etc.

For its part, the West promised economic aid, and the Russian Federation – fuel for nuclear power plants and gas. By the way, the stay of the Russian Black Sea Fleet in the Ukrainian Crimea was also justified by benefits when paying for Russian gas.

• Aircraft

“In 1999, as compensation for the gas debt, Ukraine transferred to Russia 8 Tu-160 aircraft and 3 Tu-95 MS aircraft capable of carrying nuclear weapons. Another 19 Tu-160 aircraft were eliminated (there is no exact information on the number of Tu-95). Under foreign representatives were present during the dismantling of the last aircraft – the disarmament process was not without external pressure.Also, according to the Lisbon Protocol to the Treaty on the Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Weapons, Ukraine undertook to stop using TU-22M aircraft by 2003 (there were about 60 of them). The last plane was shot down in 2007,” the Zaborona portal wrote

last year in 2023. At least a cursory reading of the daily chronicle of the war is enough to see: these are the planes from which Putin fires cruise missiles at Ukraine. The same cruise missiles that the Kremlin received from its current victim in the first half of the 90s.

• Missiles and missile complexes

After 1991, hundreds of X-55 and X-22 class missiles remained in Ukraine.

“Part of them – 575 Kh-55 and 386 Kh-22 missiles – were transferred to Russia as payment for gas debts, and the rest were disposed of. It is these types of modernized missiles that Russia is now using against Ukraine,” Zaborona noted.

According to the publication, 132 mobile operational-tactical missile complexes “Elbrus” with a flight range of 300 kilometers and 185 ballistic missiles were also decommissioned.

Thus, the disarmament of Ukraine during the years 1994-1996 meant a colossal rearmament of Russia, which, despite the “democrats” in power, already had the status of an aggressor country, since it was at this time that the First Chechen War against independent Ichkeria continued, continuous hybrid interventions in Georgia did not stop, and behind was the armed conflict in Transnistria.

https://espreso.tv/viyna-z-rosiyeyu-tsogo-dnya-ukraina-viddala-rosii-ostannyu-yadernu-i-strategichnu-zbroyu-zaraz-tsi-litaki-y-raketi-zastosovuyut-proti-nas