Ukraine was the third most powerful nuclear country in the world..who convinced it to give up its weapons?

Twenty-seven years ago, Ukraine agreed to eliminate its nuclear arsenal in an agreement concluded with Russia, the United States and Britain, according to which Kyiv gave up about 1,800 nuclear warheads, according to estimates of military experts.

In 1994, three years after the declaration of the collapse of the Soviet Union, the three countries signed the "Budapest Memorandum" with Ukraine.

The memorandum of Ukraine's nuclear disarmament stipulated "the independence and sovereignty of the declared borders of Ukraine", in exchange for Kyiv's agreement to remove those Soviet-era weapons from its territory and join the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of those weapons.

In the midst of the current Russian military operation, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has indirectly hinted at the possibility of his country returning to acquiring nuclear weapons by withdrawing from that agreement.

According to observers, Ukraine's accession to that memorandum caused it a geopolitical imbalance, made it exposed in its recent war with Russia, and weakened its military power.

The Budapest Agreement, signed in Budapest, the capital of Hungary on December 4, 1994, stipulates that “the Russian Federation, Britain and the United States reaffirm their commitment to refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine, and that none of their weapons shall be used.” against Kyiv, except in cases of self-defence, in accordance with United Nations resolutions.

The sixth article of the agreement stipulates that Moscow, Washington and London "will consult in the event that a situation arises that threatens the security of Ukraine."

Those pledges played a major role in persuading the Ukrainian government at the time to give up what was considered the third largest nuclear arsenal in the world, and it is estimated that it consisted of about 1,800 strategic nuclear warheads.

Those weapons were short-range and air-launched cruise missiles, and after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the signing of the treaty in 1994, Ukraine returned all its nuclear weapons to Russia by 1996.

And the Ukrainian president's hints about the Budapest memorandum, to which Russian President Vladimir Putin responded, that "thanks to the Soviet legacy of Ukraine they only need a system to enrich uranium, but this is just a technical issue and not an insoluble problem."

In turn, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said that "Kyiv plans to acquire nuclear weapons."

Although that agreement was considered as "security assurances" that Ukraine obtained in exchange for giving up its nuclear arsenal, Kyiv agreed in exchange for 3 security guarantees to protect it from any possible Russian attack.

At the time, Kyiv demanded financial compensation for the value of highly-enriched uranium in nuclear warheads, which can be mixed for use as fuel for nuclear reactors, and Russia agreed to pay those sums.

The second was related to covering the cost of getting rid of ICBMs, their silos and their launch pads, and the United States agreed to cover those costs.

The third condition was that Kyiv would obtain guarantees of its security once it had rid itself of nuclear weapons, which was included in the Budapest Memorandum.

In a report for "Sky News Arabia", Osama Badr, the former Egyptian ambassador to Kyiv, says: "Ukraine was the third most powerful nuclear country in the world after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, and it would have remained nuclear until now and maintained its position as a deterrent state, had it not been for the struggle East and West on the outside and environmentalists on the inside, and they persuaded them to voluntarily destroy their nuclear weapons."

Badr adds: "Ukraine fell into this trap, destroyed its weapons, and joined the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in 1994, on the condition that it be friendly to all parties and have a special status."

And he added: "Currently, after all countries have evaded implementing their obligations towards the integrity of Ukrainian territory under the pretext of violating the Budapest Memorandum and submitting requests to join NATO, the best solution to get out of this crisis is Ukraine declaring its keenness and commitment to the Budapest Memorandum and its complete neutrality towards the East and the West, and to request everyone's friendship on foot. equality".

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