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  • It needs repeating: in 1994

    From JAB@21:1/5 to All on Tue Mar 4 21:28:03 2025
    It needs repeating: in 1994, Ukraine was persuaded to give up its
    nuclear weapons to Russia in return for the US, the UK, and Russia
    guaranteeing Ukraine's sovereignty, security, and territorial
    integrity.

    The UK government is doing its best to live up to this commitment, but
    the US is effectively siding with Russia in undermining it. Instead of
    seeing its sovereignty preserved, Ukraine is being pressured to accept
    a lopsided peace agreement without real guarantees.

    With decades of Western policy consensus callously swept aside,
    European nations must now do everything within their power to preserve Ukraine's sovereignty and repel Russia's aggression.

    https://bsky.app/profile/richardbranson.bsky.social/post/3ljl22mz2722h

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  • From Blueshirt@21:1/5 to JAB on Wed Mar 5 20:31:39 2025
    JAB wrote:

    It needs repeating: in 1994, Ukraine was persuaded to give up
    its nuclear weapons to Russia in return for the US, the UK,
    and Russia guaranteeing Ukraine's sovereignty, security, and
    territorial integrity.

    It's not really as simple as that. As they were Soviet nuclear
    weapons that were left behind in Ukraine when the Soviet Union
    collapsed... and their silos were situated in strategic zones to
    strike westward. They were not designed to be fired in the
    direction of Russia! Hence "the West" preferred that Ukraine -
    now that it was free of Soviet control - got rid of them!

    The US was looking after its own interest, not Ukraine's. They
    didn't want the small ex-Soviet Union - but now independent -
    states (Belarus, Kazakhstan and the Ukraine) having nuclear
    weapons that could potentially be used against them.

    Google "The Budapest Memorandum"...

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  • From JAB@21:1/5 to All on Wed Mar 5 14:46:02 2025
    On Wed, 05 Mar 2025 20:31:39 GMT, "Blueshirt" <blueshirt@indigo.news>
    wrote:

    It needs repeating: in 1994, Ukraine was persuaded to give up
    its nuclear weapons to Russia in return for the US, the UK,
    and Russia guaranteeing Ukraine's sovereignty, security, and
    territorial integrity.

    It's not really as simple as that.

    The Trilateral Process: The United States, Ukraine, Russia and Nuclear
    Weapons

    When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Ukraine had the world's third
    largest nuclear arsenal on its territory. When Ukrainian-Russian
    negotiations on removing these weapons from Ukraine appeared to break
    down in September 1993, the U.S. government engaged in a trilateral
    process with Ukraine and Russia. The result was the Trilateral
    Statement, signed in January 1994, under which Ukraine agreed to
    transfer the nuclear warheads to Russia for elimination. In return,
    Ukraine received security assurances from the United States, Russia
    and Britain; compensation for the economic value of the
    highly-enriched uranium in the warheads (which could be blended down
    and converted into fuel for nuclear reactors); and assistance from the
    United States in dismantling the missiles, missile silos, bombers and
    nuclear infrastructure on its territory. Steven Pifer recounts the
    history of this unique negotiation and describes the key lessons
    learned.

    https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-trilateral-process-the-united-states-ukraine-russia-and-nuclear-weapons/

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