The cat is out of the bag, Ukraine gave up 3d largest Nuclear arsenal on the promise that other nuclear powers mainly US would provide security. Everyone saw how that played out so a country would need to be suicidal not to start a nuclear program.

> Ukraine gave up 3d largest Nuclear arsenal on the promise that other nuclear powers mainly US would provide security

> mainly US

You missing historical order here. Ukraine gave up their arsenal long before they decided to drop Russia as an ally and play with Europe/USA (latter happens after "Maidan"). So at given time point (when Ukraine signs memorandum) they done it with _only_ Russia' protection in mind (as there was single country in past and they're both slavic)

Please enlighten me on the order :) being a Ukrainian born in 70th

Citing nti.org:

> By 1996, Ukraine transferred all Soviet-era strategic warheads to Russia.

> Ukraine received extensive assistance to dismantle ICBMs, ICBM silos, heavy bombers, and cruise missiles from the __U.S.__ funded Cooperative Threat Reduction Program

Citing wiki: > Euromaidan was a wave of demonstrations and civil unrest in Ukraine, which began on the night of __21 November 2013__ with public protests in Maidan Nezalezhnosti (Independence Square) in Kyiv

Easy, uh?

well even by your convoluted logic you would have to go back to Orange revolution in 2004. But none of what you site has anything to do with Russia being considered a mil ally. by Ukrainan gov. Russia was considered the biggest threat to Ukraine independence starting with Ukraine's first president.

> convoluted logic

The only convoluted thing here is your own history as you see it.

> Russia was considered the biggest threat to Ukraine independence starting with Kyivan Rus'

Until Yushchenko there was no such president. Relations never were stable, though.

Look at A.I. Kuzmuk paper "Ukraine military doctrine evolution" if curious. VDU-1993 and VDU-2004 never considered Russia as a threat. VDU-2004 states there is no direct military threat against Ukraine, just possibility of being involved into bigger conflict. Kuchma even cancelled statement about NATO integration in VDU-2004, by making it more smooth.

I highly doubt Kuzmuk ever read that book to begin with :) He certainly never wrote it :). To argue an empire is not a threat to the country that gained independence from it in very recent time is very toll order and Kravchuk always aknowleged Russia as a threat to Ukrainian independence as did Kuchma.

Just ask Gadhafi, Saddam and Kim Jung Un. Oh, right, only one can answer!

Ukraine did not have as much of a choice as one would think. All the nukes were set up to be controlled by Moscow and it would have taken enough time to bypass the controls that the Russian army could feasibly have invaded or destroyed them.

They were not a major portion of Nuclear Weapons R&D and manufacturing were done in Ukraine including design and manufacture of majority of electronics including guidance systems, comms etc. as well as most top tear weapons were designed by Yuzhnoye Design Office (Dnepr Ukraine) and manufactured by Yuzhny Machine-Building Plant (Dnepr Ukraine)

Ukraine indeed had a lot of manufacturing and design of nuclear weapons. Even then the control, launch and timings were all centralized in Moscow. They would have had to reverse engineer and hack a lot of it amidst attacks from Russia and perhaps even the US.

I think you are still confused the control systems were designed and manufactured in Ukraine there was nothing to reverse eng. The only step not done in Ukraine was uranium enrichment.

Ukraine never really possessed nuclear arsenal. There were nuclear weapons on their territory but they lacked full operational capability to employ them, and didn't have the technical infrastructure to maintain them without Russian support. Those capabilities could have been built out in time but it would have required significant resources.

Right casuse Yuzhny Machine-Building Plant and Yuzhnoye Design Office are not in Dnepr Ukraine.

> America is preventing Russia from antagonizing Europe?

Er, Ukraine is in Europe. Out of 10, how would you rate the USA's efforts at stopping Russia there so far?

"Europe" is probably the wrong term here. The USA's efforts to stop Russia from antagonizing NATO members probably rates 8/10.

Part of Russia is also in Europe.

No, no.

Ukraine paid the 'entry price' that was asked of them to be protected by USA, (and France, UK, Russia, China) by surrendering their nuclear weapons.

This was a level of vulnerability and trust in third parties the good citizens of USA (and the others above) would never for a second countenance.

The USA (and the others) willingly signed up to the deal [1]. And then failed to do any deterring when it was time to walk the talk.

[1] See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Securit...

That was a non-binding memo. If Ukraine wanted protection then they should have insisted on a mutual defense and non-aggression treaty.

> That was a non-binding memo.

That's not the problem of Ukraine. The whole world sees what agreements like that are worth. Alternatively, if that would be the binding memo, and USA broke the "legally binding" promise, nobody would prosecute. The reaction of the world would be about the same.

Bottom line: non-bindingness doesn't matter here.

>Part of Russia is also in Europe.

Care to explain?

Edit: sorry, my brain read Europe as EU.