In the early 1990s, with the help of the former Soviet Union's nuclear reserves, newly independent Ukraine immediately became the world's third-largest nuclear power by standard, when Ukraine allegedly had more than 3,000 nuclear warheads. There was no shortage of nuclear warhead vehicles in Ukraine at that time, more than a dozen Tu-160 strategic bombers, countless 5,000-kilometer range can carry nuclear warhead cruise missiles. In addition, the world's most powerful liquid intercontinental ballistic missile "Satan" at that time was also developed and manufactured by Ukrainian companies. Unfortunately, Ukraine decided not to do all this, and in 1994 signed a treaty with the United States and Russia and other countries to destroy these strategic weapons in exchange for the United States and Russia and other countries to guarantee Ukraine's national sovereignty and territorial integrity. The result, needless to say, in 2014, a few days before the 20th anniversary of the signing of the treaty between Ukraine and the United States and Russia, Russia took the Crimean Peninsula. Just recently, in the face of the new situation between Russia and Ukraine, Ukraine once again thought of nuclear weapons. At the Munich Security Conference a few days ago, the Ukrainian president publicly mentioned the topic of nuclear weapons, and the implication was clear that if Ukraine still had nuclear weapons, it would be better than it is now. In an interview with the US media on the 20th, the Ukrainian foreign minister also believed that Ukraine's initial abandonment of nuclear weapons was a mistake. At the same time, he also confirmed that some NATO countries have put pressure on Ukraine to abandon the idea of joining NATO.
Objectively speaking, both the United States and Russia are somewhat "unauthentic" on this issue. Not only that, Putin's public speech last night Beijing time, and even publicly mentioned that the whole of Ukraine was once part of Russia. But the question is, who can blame this? This is the case in international politics, and Ukraine at the beginning was just "too stupid and naïve." As for the need to start restoring nuclear capabilities now, Ukraine also has ideas, but unfortunately, reality will never allow it. On the issue of nuclear weapons, the attitude of the United States and the entire West is very clear, and it is absolutely not willing to have even one more nuclear-armed country in the world, except for Israel, any non-nuclear country, including the United States allies, who want to possess nuclear weapons, will be subject to tremendous pressure from the United States. But these are only external resistances, Ukraine is unlikely to become a nuclear-armed country again, and internal resistance is the key. This resistance comes from two sources, money and technology.
Ukraine did have relatively strong defense industrial capabilities at the beginning of independence, but ukraine knows best how many of these capabilities there are today. If you want to restore these capabilities, the funds needed must also start at tens of billions of dollars. Can such a large amount of money, today's Ukraine, come out? The issue of nuclear weapons must also involve vehicles, the above-mentioned "Satan" intercontinental missile, Ukraine was indeed the main body of research and development, but the problem is that the entire system, not all of Ukraine's manufacturing, needs the cooperation of the CIS countries, including Russia. Wouldn't it be a pipe dream for Russia to cooperate with Ukraine in developing nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballistic missiles? Therefore, Ukraine has thought too much about the issue of nuclear weapons. Thinking about this question, Ukraine is almost 30 years late. If Ukraine had been smart enough to reject the temptation of the United States and Russia to retain its nuclear weapons, it might not have been able to "ask for food along the street" as it does today. But history has never had an if, and Ukraine can only pay for its original naivety.