.
From Wikipedia's
list of states wih nuclear weapons....
... hiss portion on
states formerly possessing nuclear weapons states...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_...ates_formerly_possessing_nuclear_weapons- FORMER SOVIET REPUBLICS
( See also: Kazakhstan and weapons of mass destruction and Ukraine and weapons of mass destruction )
Kazakhstan had 1,400 Soviet-era nuclear weapons on its territory and transferred them all to Russia by 1995, after Kazakhstan acceded to the NPT [non proliferation treaty] .[140]
Ukraine had an estimated 1,700 nuclear weapons deployed on its territory when it became independent from the Soviet Union in 1991, equivalent to the third-largest nuclear arsenal in the world.[141] At the time Ukraine acceded to the NPT in December 1994, Ukraine had agreed to dispose of all nuclear weapons within its territory. The warheads were removed from Ukraine by 1996 and disassembled in Russia.[142] Despite Russia's subsequent and internationally disputed annexation of Crimea in 2014, Ukraine reaffirmed its 1994 decision to accede to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty as a non-nuclear-weapon state.[143]
Belarus, which since 2023 has resumed hosting Russian nuclear weapons, also had single warhead missiles stationed on its territory into the 1990s while a constituent of the Soviet Union. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, 81 single warhead missiles were stationed on newly Belarusian territory, but were all transferred to Russia by 1996. Belarus was a member of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) from May 1992[144] through February 2022, when it held a constitutional referendum resulting in the cessation of its non-nuclear status.[145]
In connection with their accession to the NPT, all three countries received assurances that their sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity would be respected, as stated in the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances. These assurances have been flouted by Russia since the Russo-Ukrainian War began in 2014, during which Russia claimed to annex Crimea, occupied Eastern Ukraine, and in 2022, launched a full-scale invasion, with limited responses by the other signatories.[146][147][148]
As I said earlier, Ukraine was a nuclear state after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Uniton.
They had nuclear weapons, and were in fact the 3rd largest nuclear power on Earth for about 2 years, before surrendering those weapons for dismantlement. Ukraine's
ONLY condition for surrendering those weapons was that Russia respect Ukraine's territorial integrity and not invade Ukraine.
That Russia took only 22 years to violate that agreement, to take the Crimea region from Ukraine, and to then further expand into the Ukrainian territories of Donetsk and Luhansk, and then further began an all-out assault on Ukraine in Feb 2022, manifests how untruswrhy Putin is, and what a huge mistake it was for Ukraine to give up their only bargaining chip.
Imagine if Ukraine had kept just 5 of those nuclear weapons.
Or even just ONE. Russia would never have invaded Ukraine.
But with things as they are...
Short of world war, I don't know in the current Trump-led negotiations how Russia can be forced to give up the regions of Ukraine that Putin currently occupies. But I'd hate to see Russia be awarded one acre of Ukrainian land in a treaty agreement, due to how badly they have violated their 1991 agreement with Ukraine.
If I were leading negotiations, I would require that the people in those occupied regions be polled whether they want their territory to be part of Ukraine, or part of Russia.
And as I already cited, in Donesk and Luhansk, even these regions that are upwards of 70% Russian, they would still rather see their regions remain part of Ukraine.
And THAT should be the final say in whether they become Ukrainian or Russian dominions.
The trick is how to return these regions to Ukraine.
I think short of world war, Trump could still use economic sanctions to cost Russia trillions, until they concede to give these territories back to Ukraine
The only portion that Russia arguably possibly has a claim to is Crimea, that Nikita Kruschev transferred away from Russia and to Ukraine only recently in 1954.
But on the Ukrainian side, it could be argued that Crimea belonged to Ukraine for centuries before that.
