Putin once told a joke that an officer's sword was taken by his son to change a watch with a neighbor's child, and the officer looked at the watch and said:
"Well, that's fine, but what are you going to do if a bandit comes and hits me, my mother, and your brother tomorrow?" Say to him: Good evening, it's 12:30 Moscow time? ”
After saying that, the reporters present all laughed, and the deep meaning of this joke is self-evident, even if there are advanced tools, in the absence of strong military strength, these are empty talk. This truth is best reflected in Ukrainians. Ukraine now appears to be a small country in turmoil, but thirty years ago, under the glory of the Soviet Union, it became the world's third nuclear power. How did Ukraine get to where it is today in just three decades? Click on the attention and start talking right away!
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, most of the "legacy" was given to Russia, and thirty percent of it was inherited by Ukraine. Among these legacies, there were both weapons and armies, and for a time, Ukraine's national strength became stronger than ever. There are 14 military regions in the former Soviet Union, of which 3 are in Ukraine, a total of 22 regular combat divisions, and the whole territory of Moldova also belongs to the Ukrainian military districts, plus the garrison in Moldova, there are 4 tank divisions, 17 motorized infantry divisions, 1 airborne division, 3 artillery divisions and 3 internal guard divisions in Ukraine, with more than 700,000 people and extraordinary combat capabilities. At the same time, these military regions had a total of 845 combat aircraft, accounting for almost 17.2 percent of the total number of aircraft in the Soviet Air Force.
Due to Ukraine's geographical location, in the spirit of who is close to whom, the entire Black Sea Fleet has also become the bag of Ukraine. At that time, Ukraine inherited more than 9,000 tanks, more than 10,000 armored vehicles and seven helicopter regiments, and these were only the most basic parts. To say that Ukraine inherited the most hegemonic magic weapon from the Soviet Union is to count on all kinds of nuclear weapons and heavy bombers.
Before the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine, as the Soviet Arsenal, had more than 1,200 nuclear warheads and more than 2,500 nuclear weapons, and after the collapse of the Soviet Union, more than 2,700 of these nuclear weapons became Ukraine's pockets. At the time, the british and French nuclear warheads combined were not so many. Therefore, Ukraine has also become, to a certain extent, a "frightening" existence for the United States.
The number of nuclear bombs in Ukraine's hands is not only large, but also very lethal. One of them is a weapon called the R36M ballistic missile, which is even more powerful. Before the birth of the R36M, the Soviet Union's strategic nuclear weapons were mainly R36, which was a heavy missile specially used by the Soviet Union against the United States, which could carry tens of millions of tons of nuclear warheads, and as can be seen from the name, the R36M is its evolved version.
At the end of the 1960s, the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union entered a white-hot phase, and in order to balance the United States, the Soviet Union began to study the fourth-generation land-based nuclear missile R36M, which can carry a nuclear warhead of 24 million to 25 million tons, with a range of 16,000 kilometers and a power equivalent to 1,600 atomic bombs. Therefore, this missile is also called "Satanic missile". During this time, Ukraine dipped in the light of the Soviet Union and became the world's third largest nuclear power, and the United States could not sit still as it happened.
Why did Ukraine, once a glorious landscape, fall to where it is today? This is inseparable from US imperialism. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine inherited 2700 nuclear warheads and its military power was very strong. But there are only swords, no whetstones, and Ukraine only has nuclear weapons, but it does not have the ability to maintain nuclear weapons. In December 1994, under the coercion and inducement of the United States, they could only destroy all nuclear warheads and remove all intercontinental missiles in exchange for some economic assistance to alleviate the domestic predicament.
Why does Ukraine have no money? It turned out that at the beginning of Ukraine's independence, it signed a zero-point plan with Russia, giving up the legacy of the Soviet Union and not having to bear debts. But the most immediate problem with this is that Ukraine did not have the first development funds, and in order to change this situation, Ukraine decided to adopt "shock therapy", which not only did not allow the economy to develop rapidly, but also led to inflation. Coupled with Russia's trade war, Ukraine's foreign trade has been seriously hit, and the economic situation has plummeted. In such a lifeless situation, where is Ukraine's funds to support the maintenance and operation of nuclear weapons? However, the economic assistance provided by the United States has not really alleviated Ukraine's economic crisis.
At the same time, Ukraine, as the largest military factory in the Soviet Union, after its dissolution, inherited 30 percent of the military factory enterprises and 40 percent of the equipment research and development institutions, adding up to more than 4,000, more than 3 million people, all of whom rely on these enterprises to eat. However, when the Soviet Union collapsed, Ukraine had no funds to operate these enterprises, wasting a lot of manpower and material resources, and for a time, these factories had become a burden for Ukraine.
In addition to nuclear weapons, another key part of the Soviet legacy to Ukraine was the Black Sea Shipyard and the three aircraft carriers that included it. Since World War II, aircraft carriers have become an important part of the military strength of various countries, until now, there are many countries that have not succeeded in building aircraft carriers, and Ukraine almost effortlessly has three at once, naturally it is overjoyed, but soon, problems will follow.
Of the three carriers inherited by Ukraine, the Kuznetsov, the Varyag and the Ulyanovsk, of the three, only the Kur was fully built and successfully commissioned. Unfortunately, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine did not have time to sail the aircraft carrier back to the Black Sea, and it was driven away by Russia. The Varyag was only 70% complete at the time, and if it continued to build, it would cost at least 200 million US dollars, which was undoubtedly an astronomical amount for the overstretched Ukraine, so they had to abandon it on the coast of the city of Nikolayev.
In fact, Russia has offered Ukraine to buy the Varyag, but Ukraine is unwilling, and in their view, the aircraft carrier represents a country's defense potential. That's right, but without money, even countries with potential will starve to death, and in desperation, Ukraine will have to sell it to China. At this time, the United States has inserted another foot.
The United States demanded that Ukraine dismantle all of the varyag's shipboard weapons and equipment, and eventually, Ukraine sold the hollow-shelled Varyag to China for $20 million, the predecessor of China's first aircraft carrier, the Liaoning. At this point, Ukraine has only one aircraft carrier left, but the fate of this aircraft carrier is not much better.
Inherited three aircraft carriers, but Ukraine did not keep one? The last aircraft carrier was called the Ulyanovsk, which was of great significance to the Soviet Union and was the first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, but until the end of 1991, the construction of the Uber was still not completed. Without Soviet appropriations, Ukraine would not have been able to build such an aircraft carrier, and seeing that the aircraft carrier that carried the hopes of the Soviet Union was full of dust, the director of the Black Sea Shipyard said with great emotion:
"Only a great country can accomplish it, but that great country no longer exists."
Just when the director was at a loss, a Norwegian company proposed to cooperate with the Black Sea Shipyard to build 6 ships on the platform of the Wu, and at the same time, a steel company in the United States also threw an olive branch to the shipyard, willing to buy the dismantled steel of the Wu at a high price.
After a while, the shipyard really dismantled the black ship into scrap iron, who knows at this time, the Norwegian and American merchants did not move. In this way, the Soviet Union's development of the aircraft carrier business for more than thirty years ended under the deception of two businessmen. After that, Ukraine no longer had the ability to build aircraft carriers. In addition to the aircraft carriers, the Black Sea Fleet has 3 cruisers, 10 destroyers and 30 frigates, but these ships have not brought about a qualitative change in Ukraine's military power.
Aircraft carriers were dismantled, nuclear weapons were destroyed, and the Soviet Union's third legacy to Ukraine, namely advanced fighter jets, was not spared. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine inherited 19 Tu-160 heavy bombers, and in order to repay the debt, they gave 8 of them to Russia in 1999. And just then, the United States came again.
The United States demanded that Ukraine destroy the remaining 11 Tu 160, at this time Ukraine has no capital to clamor with US imperialism, and can only tearfully destroy it, and even the drawings have not been left. Later, Kravchuk referred to his views on the destruction of nuclear weapons:
"We have nuclear weapons, but we don't have a system to control, test and reproduce, so it's like a monkey with a grenade."
At the same time, "shock therapy" is also the leader's "wise move". In fact, what the Soviet Union left to Ukraine, in addition to these powerful weapons, there was another mess, that is, national division. The ethnic contradictions in Ukraine are problems left over from history, and due to the huge differences in economic levels and religious beliefs in the eastern and western regions, the political tendencies of the eastern and western regions of Ukraine are also very different, with the eastern and western parts belonging to the pro-Russian faction and the western part being more inclined to move closer to the West.
The reason why the Ussi region chose to move closer to the West was simply to get economic assistance from the West and develop the regional economy. In this context of internal and external troubles, the decline of Ukraine seems to have become a matter of course. For more than thirty years, Ukraine has proved one thing, that is, the greatness of the Soviet Union, this legacy, I don't know how long it can sustain them.