Would have been a lot cheaper and more effective to just let Ukraine keep its nukes after the Soviet Union fell - nations armed with nuclear weapons don’t get invaded. But no, our Bushies and Clintonites followed their “no nukes” religion and here we are.
We can say that now, but things were pretty chaotic in the Eastern Bloc nations after the USSR dissolved and LOTS of weapon systems were hitting the black market.
Getting rid of the nukes then likely avoided a bigger tragedy later. I can’t argue with your reasoning about the current situation, but with the corruption in the Ukraine I have little doubt that some of them would have sold a nuke or two for a few million on the black market if they had them.
I am still surprised that some of the Russians who were not getting paychecks did not sell some of their smaller nukes on the black market. People forget, but some of their soldiers went 6 months or longer without getting a paycheck.