Why the U.S. should start telling the whole truth about Israeli nukes

[Xolodno]

19. I see that get tossed around here a lot. It's a bit more complicated.

Much of the Soviet nukes they had were on their way to becoming obsolete and decommissioned/recycled. And there were economic factors at play, Ukraine at the time could not afford to decommission them and continued maintenance was going to be a heavy burden on the new young struggling economy.

Nor did they have the infrastructure or enough with the skill set to decommission, much less develop upgraded nukes. Thus creating a very hazardous situation when they started to deteriorate. Belarus faced similar problems, so both of them saw it the most cost efficient way to off load them to Russia and let it absorb the price tag.

I get it, its a nice one liner that gets emotions stirred. However, realistically, there was no way those nukes were going to stay in Ukraine or Belarus, with or without an agreement. If they held on to them, they would no doubt eventually face an environmental disaster and they were still fresh off of Chernobyl. Worse, given the chaos after the break up of the USSR, there was a real danger of a nuke(s) being appropriated nefariously. Illegal arms sellers were already trying to get their hands on them to sell.