this post was submitted on 17 Oct 2024
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Didn't Ukraine give up its nukes specifically under the condition that Russia would leave them alone as a free independent nation? Seems those terms went out the window years ago.
Exactly. That treaty was already violated. So there is no longer any treaty preventing them from becomming a nuclear power again.
I'm surprised it took them this long to even threaten the idea, although it could simply be that they already built some weapons to have a stockpile before the announcement. I can totally see Putin thinking "oh they only have one bomb, that's an acceptable loss to stop them from building more before we have another MAD stalemate."
By years ago, ypu mean 2014?
I thought it was 2016, but yeah, somewhere around then.
Ya.
And that the US would protect them if attacked.
'93 Budapest protocol I believe
That is not what the Budapest Memorandum says. It's really short so you can just read it but it only requires the US to bring the matter to the UN security counsel which they have. Russia has violated most provisions but the US hasn't violated any.
Knew I was missing something.
Kinda seems like a moot clause considering Russia has veto powers in the UNSC.
Ah I wasn't aware of that part of the deal. I wonder if they're threatening nukes because they're getting nervous that Trump might get re-elected and not honor that deal?
They're threatening to build nukes because they have nukes, I believe both France and Israel came out as nuclear nations in the same "we'll just float becoming a nuclear nation and see what happens."
There's still Soviet nuclear material missing and Ukraine has both mines and the know how to assemble older nukes anyway because that was done to some extent in Ukraine during the Soviet Union.
Yes and that exchange has been observed by the whole world. I doubt we will ever see one like it again
Anyone that gives up all of their nukes is nuts.. as demonstrated by the Ukraine case.
You might limit the amount, how many do you really need .. not thousands.. that's expensive anyway.
With this message I would not be surprised if in some underground mining complex Ukraine has centrifuges being installed already.
They aren’t even the only country to do it that’s currently in serious conflict with a nuclear power. Canada did it and now has pulled all diplomats from India.
Well they claim they have what they need already.
Unknown if that's for a dirty bomb or a true nuclear fission weapon
They have ballistic missiles and plenty of nuclear materials. If the nuclear materials are weapons grade is doubtfull but not impossible
Producing weapons grade nuclear materials isn't that difficult. Iran is believed to only need a few weeks if they want to. (IRAN has known stock piles of just below weapons, but well above power plant grade Uranium). Many of us could probably do it in our basement if we could get our hands on enough Uranium. (there are a number of ways to die a painful death doing this as most people work in their basement, but we could probably get enough to produce a bomb before we died). With the knowledge anyone has and Ukraine's current nuclear power plants and thus nuclear knowledge it is reasonable to assume they could get the weapons grade nuclear material if they really wanted.
Yeah, and I read that the byproduct of nuclear power generation is plutonium which can also be used as a Hiroshima style nuclear weapon, not in the megaton range but probably enough to get the point across.
I mean refinining is the hard part, Actually assembling a gun-type nuclear device is rather simple by the standards of modern technology.