Any western government or leader surprised that Ukraine is now talking about developing their own nuclear weapons program needs to understand that they wouldn’t even be considering that if we had just fucking held up our end of the deal.
With the Budapest Memorandum, they surrendered their (former Soviet) nukes in exchange for security guarantees. The guarantees ended up being worth less than the paper they were written on. Ergo, Ukraine, seeking security guarantees on its own terms, feels compelled to re-develop nuclear weapons technology, because that’s a guarantee nobody’s going to be able to forcibly take from you once you have it.
We did hold up our end.
We brought it before the UNSC, Russia vetoed any proposal. That was our agreement, Russia did not hold up theirs.
This is why the VETO power needs to go.
Unfortunately, without the veto power I expect the nuclear-armed countries would just leave the UN and it would lose what little usefulness it still has.
I mean, yeah, but Orban is going to dig his heels in on that. So the only really viable option if Hungary blocks their entry indefinitely is to get nukes.
Watch germany pull support if ukraine tried nukes while still selling weapons to israel for genocide and who also has nukes…
We living through a timeline where the entire world order sold to us is falling a part because our own countries wont comply with their own rules 🤡
There was absolutely no way that the West was going to allow a fragile, Russia-leaning corrupt new state keep the nuclear weapons, and Russia wasn’t down for it either. It was never in the cards regardless of what Ukraine was granted “in return.” Just as Ukraine will not be allowed to develop the bomb now by either Russia or the West.
I agree. They deserved one of two things in returned for giving up their nukes.
NATO membership.
Or a mutual defense treaty of the style seen in South Korea and Japan - i.e. Ukraine should come under the US nuclear umbrella.
Don’t forget America pinky promised security guarantees
There are several countries who gave up WMDs, either deployed or in development. Iraq, Libya, South Africa, and Ukraine. Of these, only South Africa was left alone. And to be clear, two of the remaining three were attacked by the US.
So what we’ve done here is signal to the smaller powers that they should never negotiate away their WMDs. You’re just going to get invaded, anyway. I can’t blame smaller powers for going that way at all.
Edit: and to be extra clear, this also applies to Iran and N Korea. They have no incentive to give up their nuclear programs.
The hypocrisy against Iran in particular is bothersome in that Israel has illegally developed and possesses nukes. That’s Iran’s justification, and it’s validated further with each passing day.
The American world order is falling apart and nuclear weapons are proliferating, we may very well see “tactical” nukes used in combat in my lifetime, and who knows what the response will be.
Meanwhile all anyone says about the decline of USA is “lol it’s weird, they’re so weird.” A future history book, if we’re lucky and have them, will have pictures of memes next to pictures of mushroom clouds.
Where the fuck is everyone
You know what? That’s just fair. Everyone fucked Ukraine over with the Budapest memorandum so what else are they supposed to do?
“Everyone” failed Ukraine by offering security promises that fell short when they were needed most. In 1994, Ukraine gave up the world’s third-largest nuclear arsenal, trusting the Budapest Memorandum, where Russia, the U.S., and the UK pledged to respect its sovereignty. But in 2014, Russia annexed Crimea, violating the deal, while the U.S. and UK only responded with sanctions, not the military support Ukraine might have expected. China and France also gave similar assurances, but they too did little to stop Russia. Ukraine was left vulnerable after disarming, betrayed by political promises that weren’t backed by action.
This was pretty much “every” Major Power at this time.
Did the treaty say the US and UK would offer military assistance? I don’t think it did, yet they are. I wish they’d give more, but it seems to me they’re already going beyond any reasonable expectations based on that agreement.
The Kremlin is the only one that broke that agreement.
