Umland, AndreasEssen, Hugo von2024-10-222024-10-222023Umland A. What Moscow Has Taught to Non-Nuclear Weapon States / Andreas Umland, Hugo von Essen // Transatlantic Policy Quarterly. - 2023. - Vol. 22, Issue 2. - P. 83-88. - https://doi.org/10.58867/YEGE12272822-373Xhttps://ekmair.ukma.edu.ua/handle/123456789/31928https://doi.org/10.58867/YEGE1227In the early 1990s, newly independent Ukraine briefly possessed more nuclear warheads than China, France and Great Britain taken together. It had inherited from the USSR some 1,900 strategic and 2,500 tactical nuclear weapons. However, Kyiv decided, against the background of the 1986 Chornobyl disaster, that Ukraine would become entirely free of nuclear weapons. To be sure, Ukraine was unable to use most of its nuclear weapons. Yet, the amount of warheads, specialized technology and engineering expertise it had accumulated in the Soviet period was such that it could have preserved a small amount of enriched uranium or/and plutonium, or even nuclear ammunition and warheads. Under considerable pressure not only from Moscow but also with the generous help from Washington, Kyiv transferred its Weapon of mass destruction (WMD) arsenal, however, completely and quickly to Russia. Ukraine signed and ratified the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) as a non-nuclear weapon state.enEastern EuropeNon-Nuclear Weapon StatesNPTNuclear WeaponsRussian Invasion of UkrainearticleArticle