Will Ukraine arm itself with nukes?

I was interested in knowing, as Ukraine was once part of the Soviet Union, as to whether or not they had any nuclear weapons stationed on their soil. What I found was, up till the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Ukraine had the THIRD largest arsenal in the world, over 1900 warheads, more than Britain and China combined. Ukraine gave up its weapons in 1994, after signing the Budapest memorandum on Security assurances, which is basically gave Ukraine territorial integrity. The memorandum was signed by Russia, the United States, and the United Kingdom. That memorandum has now been trchnically broken with Russia's invasion of Ukraine territory. As they gave up their weapons at the behest of this assurance, they are now in a position where they can legally re-arm themselves.

In the past few days, there are rumblings of calls to do this.

The Ukrainian Svoboda party is one of the 5 main political parties in Ukraine. It is an ultra right wing nationalist party, and models itself somewhat after the German NAZI party. Its membership has been limited to ethnic Ukrainians. Their MPMikhail Golovko, has called to re-arm the country in light of recent events"

T. Mikhail Golovko, Svoboda MP (speaking Ukrainian): “We made a very grave mistake when we gave up [our] nuclear arsenal. And right now we need to make decisions on how we can defend our statehood and sovereignty. We need to consider a number of options. One option would be to restore [our nuclear arsenal], but it’s a very complicated issue, because we’d have to obtain assurances and agreements from those world powers that are entitled to give them. We can also consider the option of Ukraine joining NATO since this is also an alliance for collective security.”

The comment to join NATO is sure to inflame the situation even further. So now we have a situation where Ukraine may, in the next few months, attempt to make nuclear weapons, next door to a hostile Russia. It may not be easy. Ukraine does get about half its energy from atomic power, and has the largest nuclear power facility in Europe. The uranium they received up tp now from Russia to power the plants is low grade. Ukraine has now nuclear enrichment facilities, but its possible they could construct "dirty bombs". Ukraine DOES have biological weapons facilities that handled weaponized pathogens used by the Russians. Its possible they may still have some of these pathogens at the facilites.

Also there is the question as to whether or not Ukraine actually did surrender every nuclear weapon it had, I.E. the possibility that there may still be some "loose nukes" somewhere in Ukraine. During the breakup of the Soviet union, there were some sales of nuclear materials on the black market, this is documented. So even if Ukriane does not posses actual weapons, they may have weapons grade materials.

As a result, we may be moving into a very dangerous period in world history.

reply to post by openminded2011


Ukraine is capable of quickly building a few nukes themselves, using old Soviet Union facilities and nuclear fuel from several power stations. They also have means of delivering them or can build them as quickly.

Why would they need nukes now? They can just troll Russia and say to Putin that either he pulls back his military and Ukraine will "forget" the whole thing or they will request to be a NATO member and allow US missile bases. What's Putin going to do, invade Ukraine because of the possibility that they will have US missiles? Then he'd be in some *serious* trouble with the UN/NATO/entire world.

Despite all the hoopla, I'm almost 100% positive they didn't surrender all their nukes.

They would have been pretty foolish to. I'm thinking there are a lot of countries that deny or won't admit to having nukes but do.

Would the Ukraine actually threaten Russia with nukes or biological weapons?I think that would push Russia into over running the entire country if so.

Well Putin must be reading ATS and this thread as it appears Russian troops have taken over missile sites

www.bbc.co.uk...

He is playing this global chess game very cleverly indeed and appears to be a Grand Master. Obama is playing checkers in comparison. Whilst Cameron is playing tiddly winks.

Wirral Bagpuss
Well Putin must be reading ATS and this thread as it appears Russian troops have taken over missile sites

I could see Obama trying to govern by reading ATS, but in Russia, ATS reads you.

Notes from Obama cabinet meeting:

I don't want to alarm anybody, but this morning I did some Googling, and it turns out the Ukraine might have some nukes. They used to be part of a team with Russia called the U.S.S.R. and Russia actually kept a bunch of nukes there; missles, subs, all that stuff. Can somebody look into this for me?

-BHO
sent from my iPhone

Nukes that old would too radio active by now that they would be inoperable, the trigger board chips would be fried by now.

reply to post by Wirral Bagpuss


That is one of the problems with political dialog between Russia and the US. Whereas one of our biggest pass times in the US is watching TV, one of the biggest ones in Russia is chess. Does affect the repective levels of thinking.

Nuclear devices cannot be left to sit around - they require constant monitoring, maintenance and security. It's also unlikely Russia would have allowed these devices to remain in Ukraine, and it would have known exactly what was present. Regardless, if a few had been left behind, they couldn't be activated, as the control systems were in Russia.

Ukraine will be able to produce the fuel for more, but to get a functional weapon and delivery system of off the ground, will be too huge a task to go unnoticed. Ask Israel about that.

a reply to: Meduzi

Ukraine is too broke to manufacture nuclear weapons.

Did they join NPT as a non-nuclear state? If so, it would be even harder.

a reply to: mbkennel

Yes, they did.

Sadly, if Ukraine had nukes, Putin would be keeping his mouth shut. Nukes in sufficient quantity and range make your country secure from other countries. It is why Iran wants them. It is why North Korea got them. If Saddam Hussein had nukes he would still be in charge and there would be no ISIS.

a reply to: Xeven

It would have made no difference to Putin. If Russia has the capability of turning the US mainland into glass (as can the US do much of the same to Russia) the Chocolate King would have told his lackeys not to even mention them. The only problematic ones are Yatsenyuk and a few of the neo-Nazi ear-whisperers. Though Yatsenyuk is quickly losing friends.

a reply to: ActuallyActuary

I seriously doubt that the Ukrainians have the capabilities that you mentioned, but even if the'd have them I'm sure they are closely monitored by their buddies in Russia and infilTraitors in Ukraine ..

Indeed, current Ukraine is too broken to manufacture nuclear weapons, but it is able to restore its nuclear capability because Ukrainians have still everything for it, but... money
readersupportednews.org...
Although with US and EU support the restoration of nuclear status won't be a problem for Ukraine at all. But is Washington and Brussels aware of what ill effects it may have?
ireport.cnn.com...
Obviously, it may move us into extremely dangerous period of world history...

originally posted by: openminded2011
I
The Ukrainian Svoboda party is one of the 5 main political parties in Ukraine.

by what measure??

It currently has 6 "constituency" seats in the 450-seat Rada after the 2014 election, failing to reach the 5% threshold to get national seats - so it is the 7th largest party, 8th if you include the other "non-affiliated" constituency seats as a "party".

At 4.71% of the vote it was also the 7th largest block.

these figures are much the same as far-right parties get all over Europe, and in no way make it a "main" political party in any shape or form.

All that said, I am intrigued by eth idea that since Russia has violated Ukraine's integrity therefore Ukraine is no longer bound by the terms of the 1994 treaty - there may be a point there, but I don't' see anyone rushing to give Ukraine any nukes, and I don't know that it has any capability to build any itself - soviet nuclear weapon manufacturing plants were all in what is now Russian territory - eg see this PDF - Table 1 has the location of all nuclear weapon related plants, including design, build, and manufacture of non-nuclear components.

originally posted by: Alerter
Indeed, current Ukraine is too broken to manufacture nuclear weapons, but it is able to restore its nuclear capability because Ukrainians have still everything for it, but... money
readersupportednews.org...

I don't see that as being a credible report - it is not specific, and while there are certainly ex-nuclear weapon technicians and other crew around, that is not the same thing as having design and manufacturing plant - look at how much effort Iran has had to put in to getting to (wherever it is at the moment) for example.

some missiles were built in Ukraine - specifically SS24's - and it was argued in eth 1990's that these were therefore Ukrainian property and not Soviet - but ultimately all the warheads and all the missiles were removed or destroyed - there is, IMO, no reason to believe that any "lost" SS-19's are retained by Ukraine - they were a modern missile and something that was specifically tracked and accounted for in various agreements. The number 31 mentioned is also suspicious - Russia is known to have 30 in service....not Ukraine!

this 1996 paper from FAS about the Soviet nuclear stockpile and how it was being handled at that time is a good read and specifically mentions removing the warheads from and dismantling SS-19's in Ukraine.

The chronology of Ukraines nuclear disarmament is summarised here, and this paper at FAS notes that the dismantling was carried out under international verification - a large part of which was the US's Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) Program.

Ukraine does not need nukes. All needs to do is keep on doing what it has been doing. Russia can not afford the conflict in Ukraine. It's military is unprepared and the financial cost is just to high. Russia has pulled back its support of the rebels as of late perhaps looking for a way out. With its economy in the tank and China's economy falling oil will be in less demand and drop in price again. Between that and the sanctions Russia needs out of Eastern Ukraine. Putin misread his position, over estimated his military abilities, his economic strength, his global political capital and his support from so called friends like China and Iran. And he completely underestimated the Wests response. Instead of fracturing the West and breaking up NATO he managed the exact opposite.

For Russia everything has gone wrong. Ukraine does not need nukes, it just needs patience.

EX Ukraine pm the one jailed for bribes with gas deals sad she wanted to nuke the Russian population in HER COUNTRY,let alone Russia!

Think about that,she would stop shelling the cities to the east and instead nuke them,very disturbing and shows how murderous some of the far right in Ukraine are

Mr Spad,you havnt changed one bit since shock and awe days here cheering from the sidelines while others watched in disgust as war crimes were created

Russia beat the Georgian army in FIVE days,if they realy were fighting in Ukraine this civilian cleansing by the Ukraine authority would have been over as quick as Crimea voted to join Russia

Have seen you numerous times on this site mention how bad the Russian army is

That's not true,in 5 days they beat the Georgians and didn't show their full hand at their disposal to the western world

Ukraine is a trap designed to pull Russia into a long prolonged conflict as like in Afghanistan they would win the war but bleed money and lives to the resistance gone to ground and popping up when time is right to hit small isolated targets or perhaps shoot down craft with the many SAMs floating about