12mo ago

Zelenskyy: We Gave Away Our Nuclear Weapons and Got Full-Scale War and Death in Return

united24media.com

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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.
- 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
- The UK and, funnily enough, Russia also promised to come to their aid
  
  Where? The Budapest Memorandum just calls for the UK to call the UNSC in case Ukraine gets attacked. It does not mean the UK has to send any weapons or soldiers to Ukraine.
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.
You know what? That's just fair. Everyone fucked Ukraine over with the Budapest memorandum so what else are they supposed to do?
- How did "everyone" fuck Ukraine over? Russia fucked them.
  
  "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.

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