They were never a nuclear power. Russia had their nukes stationed there.
“They were never a nuclear power. Russia had their nukes stationed there.”
Exactly.
BTW If they were left there, the Ukraine still wouldn’t have any nukes.
Every one of them would’ve been sold to the highest bidder on the international market.
No, the Soviet Union had nukes stationed there. The nukes weren’t Russia’s, they belonged to the Soviet Union. As in, the Union that Russia was JOINTLY in.
Any Soviet Union asset under the care of the Ukrainian Soviet, if left inside Ukrainian territory at the start of independence, de-facto became Ukraine’s asset.
This really isn’t hard to understand. It’s like “fixtures and fittings” when buying a house.
Upon the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the nukes on Ukrainian soil became Ukraine’s to dispose of as they saw fit. In fact, because Ukraine sought to join the NPT it had an undertaking AND a target date for dismantling the nuclear weapons was set for the end of 1994.
If they didn’t own the nukes, how could they be legally responsible for decommissioning them especially when they had no means to do so?!
So when they signed the Minsk Agreement on December 30, 1991, Belarus, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan all agreed that the Russian government would be “given charge” of all nuclear armaments. Not ownership, but the power to maintain and use those weapons. In fact that agreement even said the nukes could stay on Belarus, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan soil (but with a veto on launch if Russia chose to use them).
Again - how could they have a veto if they didn’t own the assets? The whole point of this argument was for Russia to deal with the maintenance, and act as a security guarantor.
The Budapest Memorandum came about to resolve the issue that Russia wanted all those nukes back under its direct control on its own soil and wanted Belarus, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan to lose their veto on use. At which point they quite rightly said “you ain’t getting that without a massive quid pro quo.”