Ukraine gave up its third-largest nuclear arsenal in world
Highlights
- West is working to equip the Ukrainian forces with weapons and ammunition
- Situation was not the same some decades back
- Ukraine had third-largest nuclear arsenal in world
Russia-Ukraine War Latest News: Tens of thousands of residents are leaving Ukraine amid Russia's attack on the country. The UN refugee agency, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has estimated that about 368,000 Ukrainians have arrived in neighboring countries since the invasion started on February 24.
Russian President Vladimir Putin hasn’t disclosed his ultimate plans, but Western officials believe he is determined to overthrow Ukraine’s government and replace it with a regime of his own.
As Russia pushes ahead with its offensive, the West is working to equip the outnumbered Ukrainian forces with weapons and ammunition.
However, the situation was not the same some decades back. In 1996, the American secretary of defense, William J Perry, joined his Russian and Ukrainian counterparts in ceremonies marking the completion of Ukraine's nuclear disarmament. Under Western pressure, Ukraine had agreed to give up the nuclear weapons it inherited with the breakup of the Soviet empire in exchange for a Russian and Western security guarantee.
Ukraine gave up its nuclear arsenal — an estimated 1,900 warheads that at the time constituted the third-largest nuclear arsenal in the world — after getting the security assurance it wanted. It is known as the Budapest Memorandum, named for the Hungarian capital in which it was signed in 1994 by the United States, Britain, and Russia.
Fast forward to 2022, now it is Russia that wants a security guarantee from the West as well as legal guarantees that Ukraine never be permitted to join the NATO alliance. Russia wants a stop to NATO's eastward expansion, which it asserts Washington promised in the early aftermath of the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 in the context of the reunification of Germany.
Today, as Ukrainians are bombed and killed, there may be some regrets.
Also Read | Russians enter Ukraine's 2nd-largest city, advance on ports on day 4 of invasion
Also Read | Here's how much evacuation flights cost the govt to bring back Indians from Ukraine for free
