18.10.2024 – Translated from Ukrainian via Google and OFP
President Volodymyr Zelensky’s words at a press conference in Brussels
that Ukraine’s security can be ensured either by NATO or nuclear weapons caused a great stir. The German publication Bild stated that Ukraine is seriously considering the possibility of restoring its nuclear weapons stockpiles. And Russian propaganda went into hysterics that we are preparing a mythical “dirty bomb”.
Read about what nuclear weapons Ukraine had after the collapse of the USSR, why it lost them and whether it can “restore” them in the OBOZ.UA article.
Nuclear weapons in Ukraine
As of 1991, Ukraine had the world’s third largest nuclear arsenal. It included:
– 176 intercontinental ballistic missiles as part of the 43rd Missile Army: 130 liquid-fuel SS-19 (six warheads each) and 46 solid-fuel SS-24 (ten warheads each) in silo launchers;
– strategic bombers Tu-95MS and Tu-160: from 30 to 43;
– nuclear warheads of strategic weapons: from 1514 to 2156;
– tactical nuclear warheads: from 2800 to 4200.
Ukraine could control tactical weapons because they did not require special codes. But strategic weapons – no, Moscow had the “button”.
When and why Ukraine lost its nuclear status
This finally happened on June 2, 1996.
The fact is that after Ukraine declared its independence, the question arose about the future fate of the powerful nuclear arsenal located on its territory. The Declaration of State Sovereignty of Ukraine, adopted by the Supreme Council of the Ukrainian SSR on July 16, 1990 and which was an element of the foreign policy doctrine, included fundamental principles of non-nuclearity (“not to accept, not to produce, and not to acquire nuclear weapons”).
This issue was fundamental for both the US and Russia, who clearly wanted to see Ukraine as a non-nuclear state, and they put pressure on our country to achieve this. The government, mainly due to the positions of then President Leonid Kravchuk and the head of the SBU Yevhen Marchuk, immediately took the path of least resistance and began actively declaring their intentions to renounce nuclear weapons and deprive Ukraine of its nuclear status.
Thus, since 1992, delegations from Washington and Moscow began to travel to Ukraine. The Americans proposed to destroy the entire nuclear arsenal, and the Russians asked to transfer all nuclear weapons to Russia.
On May 7, 1992, then-President of Ukraine Leonid Kravchuk sent a letter to the United States stating: ” Ukraine will ensure the destruction of all nuclear weapons, including strategic offensive weapons, deployed on its territory.”
All tactical nuclear weapons were quickly moved to Russian factories for destruction in the first half of 1992, and the last train arrived in Russia in early May, 25 days ahead of the scheduled date.
The Massandra Agreements of September 3, 1993 provided for the ways and basic principles of disposal of nuclear weapons located on the territory of Ukraine, as well as the procedure for implementing guarantee and author’s supervision of the operation of strategic missile systems located on the territories of Ukraine and the Russian Federation.
On November 16, 1994, Ukraine joined the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. These actions confirmed that Ukraine is the owner of all nuclear weapons inherited from the USSR and intends to completely get rid of them, using atomic energy in the future exclusively for peaceful purposes. In exchange for this, the largest nuclear states were to ensure Ukraine’s security and the exclusion of any forms of aggression or pressure.
On December 5, 1994, the so-called Budapest Memorandum was signed between Ukraine, the Russian Federation, Great Britain and the United States of America , according to which the above-mentioned participants must respect the independence, sovereignty and existing borders of Ukraine, and refrain from any manifestations of aggression against Ukraine, including economic pressure.
In June 1996, Ukraine fully complied with its agreements – all nuclear warheads were transferred to Russia for destruction, and classified strategic bases were transferred to non-military use. The guarantors did not fulfill their obligations.
They promised – they deceived
The signatory of the Budapest Memorandum from Ukraine was President (1994-2005) Leonid Kuchma. Years later, he admitted that he had been warned of the consequences. He spoke about this during a speech at the annual meeting of the Yalta European Strategy (YES) in 2017.
“When we signed this memorandum, I personally had 100% confidence that Ukraine had received a document with which we could live peacefully… And there was as much written there as in the fairy tale about the goldfish. But the fish quickly disappeared somewhere,” Kuchma admitted.
He recalled how he then went to visit French President François Mitterrand.
“We had a heart-to-heart talk. He was very attractive. He said: “Young man, these signatories will deceive you.” I said to him: “What are you talking about! My God! The President of America, the Prime Minister of Great Britain will deceive? And especially the President of the Russian Federation Yeltsin, my very good friend? Never! He always advocated territorial integrity,” Kuchma quoted a fragment of that conversation.
According to the ex-president, “20 years have passed – and we have been deceived, completely,” referring to Russia’s aggression against Ukraine that began in 2014.
Is it possible to “return” nuclear weapons?
On October 17, the German publication BILD published an article claiming that Ukraine could manufacture nuclear weapons in just a few weeks.
“We have the materials, we have the knowledge. If the order is given, it will only take us a few weeks to have the first bomb,” a high-ranking Ukrainian official allegedly told the publication’s journalists.
The BILD article also says that Ukraine will not accept a second Russian attack on Kyiv. “In this case, the Ukrainian nuclear arsenal, which the country voluntarily abandoned in the 1990s, will be restored,” the publication writes.
The article also claims that several months ago closed discussions were held with politicians and officials regarding the possibility of restoring the nuclear arsenal.
The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry has already officially denied information about Ukraine’s plans to develop weapons of mass destruction. The Foreign Ministry called this information “insinuation from unnamed sources of the BILD publication.”
Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Georgiy Tykhyy stressed that Ukraine was and remains a “committed participant in the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons,” while “Moscow creates unacceptable threats to nuclear facilities on Ukrainian territory.”
Volodymyr Zelensky also stated that Ukraine is not building nuclear weapons, emphasizing that our priority is joining NATO.
As for the development of nuclear weapons in Ukraine, experts believe that we do not have such an opportunity.
Even on the eve of the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russian occupiers, the head of the Center for the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, Polina Sinovets, dotted the i’s in a comment to the media.
“Nobody will allow us to do this. It is impossible to create a nuclear bomb without anyone noticing. It will not work out that we would “quietly” make a nuclear bomb, like North Korea. Either we isolate ourselves from the rest of the world and make a nuclear bomb, which I do not believe in, or we do absolutely nothing,” said Sinovets.
According to her, Ukraine has never had a complete nuclear fuel cycle, which would make it possible to create nuclear weapons.
“We are missing two elements – we do not enrich uranium and we do not extract plutonium from fuel. One kilogram of natural uranium contains 7 grams of uranium, which can be used for nuclear weapons. In order to extract this material, we need to create large-scale uranium enrichment facilities. Also, extracting plutonium from fuel is a very complex and expensive process. Plutonium needs to be extracted from the reactor and worked with in specially equipped laboratories, since it is radioactive. This is a huge industrial scale, which requires enormous amounts of money, and it is unlikely that the IMF will provide funds to Ukraine for this,” Polina Sinovets explained.
“These actions confirmed that Ukraine is the owner of all nuclear weapons inherited from the USSR and intends to completely get rid of them, using atomic energy in the future exclusively for peaceful purposes. In exchange for this, the largest nuclear states were to ensure Ukraine’s security and the exclusion of any forms of aggression or pressure.”
The Budapest Memorandum was one of the greatest deceptions and swindles in the history of the world, if not, the greatest. Ukraine is now paying a very heavy price for this gross mistake.
The BM was also the death sentence for any hope of future voluntary denuclearization.
If Ukraine was smart in hindsight, it has already started the production of new nuclear weapons years ago already. Nukes are the best thing to have to safeguard your security.
If nukes were a safeguard Nato would never have let downe Ukraine. The best weapon seems to be compromat on world leaders.
If you have nukes but no will to use them, you might as well dump them into the ocean.