Why did the Ukraine give up the third largest nuclear weapons power for a peace treaty with Russian monsters in there backyard.
How naive .
Remember who was in charge of the US back then.
Dayton Accords, anyone?
Your guess is as good as mine for why they gave up their nukes. Probably the money, financial help and such. Looking back, seems short-sighted but screaming hungry masses were thinking they couldn’t eat nukes to feed themselves. Just guessing.
In the immortal words of Otter in Animal House:
“You f##ked up! you trusted us.”
They trusted us, the Brits and most stupidly of all, the Russians.