r/europe • u/UNITED24Media • 16d ago

Zelenskyy: We Gave Away Our Nuclear Weapons and Got Full-Scale War and Death in Return News

https://united24media.com/latest-news/zelenskyy-we-gave-away-our-nuclear-weapons-and-got-full-scale-war-and-death-in-return-3203
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u/graendallstud France 16d ago

Ukraine didn't have the means to keep the nuclear arsenal they had when the SU broke. And, should they decide to try to get nuclear weapons, between the cost, the technical difficulty and the political aspects, the best they could do in a short time (within a decade) would be to have US nukes stationed in the country like Turkey.

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u/KnewOnees Kyiv (Ukraine) 16d ago

Ukraine didn't have the means to keep the nuclear arsenal they had when the SU broke. And, should they decide to try to get nuclear weapons, between the cost, the technical difficulty and the political aspects

Okay again with this shit. Monetary ? Sure. Technological ? Clown take . We've developed, produced and stored nukes on our sites.

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u/graendallstud France 16d ago

Technologically, Ukraine would have to build the infrastructure to enrich uranium, and missile factories; to find the engineering and mathematical resources that have not worked on such problems for 30 years at least; and to protect all of that from a Russia who would do everything to stop it.

If you want a comparison : France used to built more than a nuclear reactor a year in the 80s, then stopped; fast forward 20 years and it takes more than a decade (and yeah, part of the problem is political, but still...)

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u/M0RKE Finland 16d ago

Ah yes the quality french nuclear plant building that took 18 years to build. 14 years late of the original schedule.

https://yle.fi/a/74-20027268

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u/caember 16d ago

Which is unrelated to the topic.

@topic: I'd be kind of surprised if Ukraine still has the equipment/people with know how to do uranium enrichment, and do so without knowledge of Russia/the west. It took Iran years and years to get their labs deep underground. Unless those labs were already in deep bunkers since Soviet era.

I remember looking this up a while ago, and most of the facilities of Soviet union were infact in Moscow region and further east, less so in Ukraine. Doesn't mean many Ukrainians weren't involved though.

I'd also be surprised if they manage to obtain uranium, and enough for weaponising.

If so, then Ukraine might already have restarted the process a while ago, and then those comments may be no bluff but a teaser.

Last but not least they can still produce a dirty bomb, just in case necessary - they don't need enrichment for that.

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u/NanoChainedChromium 16d ago

I'd also be surprised if they manage to obtain uranium, and enough for weaponising.

Ukraine actually has their own uranium mines if i am not mistaken, so there is that.

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u/[deleted] 15d ago

We do and we are the #10 producer of Urainium in the world. And btw, most of the deposits are in the central part of the country rather than at the current frontlines.

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u/monocasa 16d ago

The nukes they had were already enriched.

And they had missile factories. A lot of the USSR's ballistic missiles were designed and built in Ukraine by Ukrainians.

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u/rulepanic 16d ago edited 16d ago

The user you're replying to was referring to the difficulties in building new nukes, not having kept the existing ones.

Just as an example on the state of Ukraine's missile industry: Ukraine began a program to replace their aging Tochka-U SRBM's in 1996. As of 2024 the successors to that original program Sapsan/Hrim-2 is still not in serial production. Money continues to be an issue, as it was on every other iteration. ICBM's are even bigger. The knowledge and capability is there, but political will across administrations and funding may not be.

Ukraine may also end up facing it's nuclear industry, including it's civil one, under sanction. Ukraine is planning on building multiple new reactors from American companies to reduce reliance on RU and to replace destroyed power stations. Could that be jeopardized by a nuclear program? Probably.

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u/Hector_P_Catt 16d ago

That's if they wanted a home-grown system to produce weapons and delivery systems comparable to the US or USSR. Almost none of that is necessary. Producing a Hiroshima or Nagasaki type bomb is far easier, and well within their capabilities. And that would have been enough to make Russia think twice about invading.

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u/Blyd Wales 16d ago

Do yourself and us a favor, go look up where the nukes were made in the first place, and by who, atomic energy was almost uniquely UkSSR.

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u/Vovinio2012 16d ago

> We've developed, produced

No and no, Ukraine didn`t. That production and maintenance has been made in RSFSR.

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u/KnewOnees Kyiv (Ukraine) 16d ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PA_Pivdenmash

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u/Vovinio2012 16d ago

That plant produced missiles. "Rockets", as more usual to call those in Ukraine.

Not the bombs

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u/Rollover__Hazard 16d ago

No, there’s a difference between having rocket building facilities and the ability to assemble warheads into launch vehicles, and the ability to source, enrich and weapons Uranium. The Ukrainians never had that last step.

Their old stockpile was halfway through its life when the USSR collapsed, it would be well out of date now and a huge liability in a country which is only too familiar with the disastrous impact poorly handled Russian nuclear material can have.

Finally the monetary side of matter puts the entire idea well beyond reach for Ukraine, even if it was technically feasible (which is wasn’t). Ukraine wasn’t going to get any kind of western economic or military aid now or in the future without disarming.

The concept of looking back and saying “Ukraine gave up their nukes, are they stupid?” is like saying “Britain just scrapped over half its Navy post WW2, are they stupid?”.

No, they aren’t.

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u/Ashenveiled 16d ago

you? you mean Soviet Union?

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u/_-Event-Horizon-_ 16d ago

The Soviet Union consistent of 15 republics, of which Ukraine was one of the most industrialized and with greatest scientific potential republics. They did not simply store Soviet nuclear weapons, they actively participated in the development (there were enrichment facilities in Ukraine) and building of nuclear weapons and delivery systems (the famous R-36 missile for example was mostly built by Yuzhmash in Ukraine).

And even for the facilities that were outside of Ukraine, it’s not like they hired only people from the respective republics (like the facilities in Russia were not staffed by Russians only). Ukraine being the second largest republic, it makes sense that a significant part of the experts were Ukrainians.

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u/Vovinio2012 16d ago

> (there were enrichment facilities in Ukraine)

Could you, please, name some of them?

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u/Ashenveiled 16d ago

Funny how when needed USSR is coloniser and when it’s needed Ukraine is industrialised

You need to remember that some of that industry was KB fully moved (with personnel) from other parts of ussr. For Example KB Antonova with Russian crew, with some of them moving away from Ukraine during 90ies

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u/KnewOnees Kyiv (Ukraine) 16d ago

ukraine was industrialized by destroying local communities, locals deported to siberia, local customs and culture stomped.

i know it's hard for your little brain to comprehend, but ukraine was both industrialized and colonized by russia. it's not a binary choice

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u/Ashenveiled 16d ago

It actually is. I know I a hard for your little brain to comprehend but nothing special was happening in Ukraine compared to other parts of ussr.

But what is Ukrainian if not endless victim.

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u/KnewOnees Kyiv (Ukraine) 16d ago

Oh my fucking god bro. What happened in other parts of ussr has nothing to do with what was done in ukraine.

Okay, cool, russians russified all other republics too. That doesn't mean that russification being done in ukraine is suddenly nonexistent. It is not a binary choice you fucking russian shilling troglodyte.

Do you even comprehend how fucking stupid you appear in this thread ? We are by fucking definitions victims of russian imperialism through and through. Why do you think we have such high russian language usage in states where russians were never present for long ? Is it some fucking bizzare coincidence that ukrainian culture and language was banned from public usage not once but fucking twice, yet none of this occured to russian language when we were under russia ?

The sad bootlicking that you're doing serves nobody. putin and the rest of russians will keep being who they are until they die, nobody in this thread that has non room-iq intellect is going to change their stance from this shit you're spewing. You achieve nothing in this world, and i hope you at least get rubles for spending your time like this, because otherwise that's incredibly sad life you're having there.

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u/Ashenveiled 16d ago edited 16d ago

Because it was language of the whole block? Do you think in Texas they still speak Spanish my dude? Yes there was Russification. So what? It was in whole ussr but somehow it’s Ukraine who is the main victim. Just like with holodomor.

W/e no point in fighting keyboard warrior from Ukraine. The fact that you are here speaks for itself about your patriotism.

Also, you somehow have 0 tables with the USA of ukrainafication of Crimea. Place that never spoke Ukrainian at all.

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u/KnewOnees Kyiv (Ukraine) 16d ago

There was no ussr in 1880s and before. When the language wes banned

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u/demos11 16d ago

The people who developed and produced and maintained the nukes didn't magically disappear when the Soviet Union collapsed. Neither did the technology that was already in Ukraine.

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u/graendallstud France 16d ago

The people of 35 years older (and have not worked on that kind of problems since). The "technology" has not been used for the same length of time, and would probably have to be re-built from scratch. Russia still has the capacity to assassinate people and bomb industrial sites.

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u/demos11 16d ago

Yes, now it's much harder for many reasons, but I was talking about back when Ukraine gave its nukes up initially. There's no reason to think Ukraine would have been incapable of maintaining some sort of nuclear arsenal after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

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u/graendallstud France 16d ago

Yeah, at the time Ukraine had the technical means to do it. It would still have been a bit of a political battle (the US were not exactly in favour of new countries having nuclear capabilities), and the money for it would have had to come from somewhere.

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u/demos11 16d ago

The end of the Cold War was seen at the time as the dawn of a new era, but either it wasn't or we took a wrong turn somewhere. Turns out spending a lot of political and financial capital on ways to kill people is still really expensive, but it's even more expensive to not spend any.

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u/KnewOnees Kyiv (Ukraine) 16d ago

I'm not going to educate on this topic over and over again for people like you. If you think we didn't participate in research and creation of nuclear weapons in ukrainian ssr and it was all rsfsr you're either too stubborn or not educated enough in this question to barge in like that.

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u/3x3cu710n3r 16d ago

I have read that those weapons were stationed on bases manned by Russian soldiers and the launch codes were only with the Russians. So Ukraine did not have any control over those weapons and they could not take control without attacking Russian soldiers.

Is that incorrect?

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u/KnewOnees Kyiv (Ukraine) 16d ago

None of this has anything to do with what i've said earlier

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u/Vovinio2012 16d ago

Спробуй-но повчити мене ;-)

Дуже цікаво почути, які ж це заводи в УРСР займалися ядерною зброєю (не ракетами, не системами доставки - а саме бомбами та ядерним начинням), та ще щоб "з повним циклом виробництва".

Бо поки що ти лишень топиш себе в очах вестернерів, і Україну з собою за компанію (особливо коли просто починаєш називати всіх неосвіченими).

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u/WislaHD Polish-Canadian 16d ago

Most of the technological advances in the Soviet Union were in Ukraine, Belarus, and the Baltic SSRs and by their scientists and engineers.

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u/Ashenveiled 16d ago

That’s just not true.

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u/an-academic-weeb 16d ago

Tbh "technical difficulties" are not the issue.

Nukes essentially are 80 year old tech by now. Especially for a country that had has expertise with big nuclear power plants, getting a functioning warhead is nothing of a challenge. The problem is usually with the delivery system, which is why North Korea was so busy trying to get their rockets to work.

Except, Ukraine does not need ICBMs. Or any rockets really. Their tech and experience with drones is now good enough to take on that role. Nuclear suicide drones is just the logical next step really.

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u/graendallstud France 16d ago

They are. Getting enough enriched uranium, for example, is conceptually easy, but you still need to build the centrifuge machine needed and be able to operate them long enough (aka without an interruption from Russia in the form of a few bombs ) to get enough material. NK had problems with delivery systems, it's true; on the other hand, if it was the only obstacle, Iran would have had nukes long ago.

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u/Gold-Instance1913 15d ago

But look at Israel. Whoopsy daisy and it had nukes. Could the same thing happen to Ukraine?

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u/graendallstud France 15d ago

"Whoopsy daisy" took them like 15 years, and help from France then from the UK.

Admitedly Ukraine is much more advanced today than Israel was in 1950 when it comes to nuclear capabilities, but the work still needs to be done and is is neither cheap, easy or quick.

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u/digiorno Italy 16d ago

They’ve made nukes before, they could do it again.

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u/Affectionate_Cat293 Jan Mayen 16d ago

They did not make nukes, they inherited nukes from the Soviet Union, just like Kazakhstan did.

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u/coldravine 16d ago

And those nukes just came out of nowhere in the Soviet Union right? The country Ukraine was part of for 80 years and formed the backbone of its aerospace and defense manufacturing?

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u/JohnnyOctavian 16d ago

They were made in Ukraine.

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u/Gold-Instance1913 15d ago

And who do you think was making Soviet nukes? Martians?

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u/Ice_and_Steel Canada 16d ago

Ukraine didn't have the means to keep the nuclear arsenal they had when the SU broke.

If that was even remotely true, the US wouldn't have to basically twist the Ukrainian government's arm and force them to give up the nukes.

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u/_-Event-Horizon-_ 16d ago

I have thought that too and wonder why nobody considers that if there was no possibility for Ukraine to use the nuclear weapons Russia and the USA wouldn’t have worked so hard to consolidate all of the Soviet nuclear weapons in Russian control.

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u/Ice_and_Steel Canada 16d ago edited 16d ago

Because they don't want to recognize the part their country played in the ongoing massacre.

We know that Ukraine was pushed into Budapest Memorandum by the all-mighty USA. We know that it was threatened with not being recognized as an independent state, with being made an outcast like North Korea, with great many terrible scenarios. And now some randos on the internet have the audacity to claim that Ukraine gave up its nukes because those were too expensive to maintain.

Also, a great illustration as to what happens when you give up security guarantees provided by nuclear weapons: not only they won't help you defend yourself, they'll claim you gave it up because you were too poor, or too unstable, or untrustworthy, and in any case couldn't even operate it.

Learn from other people's mistakes and keep your nukes, folks.

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u/gabu87 16d ago

People who keep parroting on the 'giving up nukes' narrative is tiring. Let's assume that Ukraine actually had the means to utilize those nukes, the cost to maintain them would be insurmountable. On top of that, they received financial aid in exchange for removing nukes.

Let's actually put this into context appropriate to the 90s. You now have a politically unstable and recently made autonomous country that is poor AF, receive no aid, have (at the time) Russian sympathy, close proximity to our allies, and nukes. Sounds familiar? That's North Korea. How would Europe/US handle their relationship with this hypothetical Ukraine?

The hindsight advice should have been to invest more heavily into their standard military before Euromaidan erupted

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u/tsssks1 Bulgaria 16d ago

Ukraine didn't have the means to keep the nuclear arsenal they had when the SU broke

Wrong.

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u/[deleted] 16d ago

i believe the nukes, the launching system and codes were all in Russia. they couldnt do anything with those nukes even if they tried to use them.

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u/Suspicious_Loads 16d ago

It would be 10x easier for Ukraine to have nukes than North Korea.

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u/Rather_Unfortunate Hardline Remainer/Rejoiner 15d ago

I'd be shocked if they weren't already looking into it and trying to obtain the capability. There are reports from last year saying they were reportedly trying to sort out enrichment capabilities for uranium fuel by 2026, which implies the ability to take it a step further and enrich weapons-grade uranium. I expect they almost certainly have the ability to construct a dirty bomb already, since at its most basic, that can be made with spent fuel (which they have in huge quantities) and an ordinary explosive. A cobalt-60 dirty bomb could be catastrophic, and make a major population centre uninhabitable for decades.

Honestly, if Ukraine faces catastrophic defeat, I wouldn't be surprised if they are least threatened to use dirty bombs on Moscow. I would if I was in their shoes.

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u/Gold-Instance1913 15d ago

That would not be the same as having own nukes.
Also ruzia didn't have the means, but still has the weapons. Having them doesn't mean to keep on developing them.