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.
My Aunt was Ukrainian and fled with her father as a child.
She was furious over the 1994 treaty .
She got a chance to see her childhood home in the Crimea before she died.
Her stories were hair raising.