The West "closed its doors and promises" to Ukraine after its last nuclear warheads left in 1996, a key negotiator on the country's international disarmament told openDemocracy.
That disarmament left Ukraine “without the most powerful method of protecting the state,” said Yuriy Kostenko, a former environment minister.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine inherited the world’s third largest nuclear arsenal: 17% of the world’s potential nuclear weapons, including 176 long-range ballistic missiles and 42 strategic bombers armed with more than 1,800 nuclear warheads. The caveat: Moscow kept command codes over Ukraine’s weapons, although the short-range tactical weapons were entirely in the hands of Ukraine.
