Such an operation cannot need more than a few months at most.
Therefore Ukraine, and any country which would have been in the same situation and would have chosen to give up their own nuclear weapons, really made willingly a choice to act in this way, because they also had the alternative choice of gaining control over the weapons and the Russians would not have been able to stop them.
But how much would it have cost to keep those warheads and their rocket engines and all the associated infrastructure in good working order, and secure from accidental launch or denotation, for decades up to the present day?
When the decision was made, I suspect it was not at all clear that having the ability to nuke Russia might be an option worth spending billions on, and at the end of the Cold War many Ukrainians might have thought that the real threat would be from the West (so they could rely on Russian nukes to protect them).
The point still stands, though, that nuclear weapons are a powerful (if expensive) insurance policy for a sovereign nation against unforeseeable future geopolitical risks.
So while it would be expensive..history pretty much shows it would've been cheaper for Ukraine then what's currently happening, and they definitely have the knowledge and skills locally to do it.
If Russia can do it for a few thousand warheads, Ukraine can too. It’s not like their economies are that different.
To give some figures, the IMF estimates that the sizes of the economies in 2021 (in US$ million, PPP) were:
* Russia 4,328,122
* Ukraine 576,106
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28PP...
I think you're massively underestimating the effort needed to have operational nuclear weapons. Nuclear missiles aren't like a car that you can just hotwire and jump start and something you can store and forget in their silos for years and then dust them off when you need them, but require constant and ludicrously expensive maintenance to stay operational.
First you need to have the rockets well maintained and tested to make sure then can have successful lift-off, then make sure the guidance systems are accurate enough to deliver your payload to the target.
Secondly and probably the most difficult, you need the detonation mechanism well maintained and tested, as the nuclear reaction needs super precise timing of the fissile material inside the chamber. Otherwise, even if you're lucky and hit your target, if the nuclear reaction is off, the explosion will be a dud and not cause much damage.
This is not something trivial that can be pulled off successfully in a few months notice, but you need a coordinated round the clock, and very costly, national program like the nuclear programs of France, UK, US, etc.
It's not at all clear Ukraine had that kind of resources to invest in a nuclear weapons program, even if its government decided it would like to have one. Not to mention the fact that, were a decision like this taken, a Russian invasion would have been put into motion within the week.
> Such an operation cannot need more than a few months at most.
I believe you are massively underestimating here.
Japan does not have nukes although they possess a full enrichment cycle. But they are the only country that does to my knowledge and have their reasons for a moratorium.
Ukraine had full control, and an operational arsenal for a few years. There was no such thing as a PAL on Soviet nuclear weapons.
Ukraine had a fully functioning nuclear force for these few years.
I will give no credibility to claims of Western think tanks who can't tell apart a tank from an apc.
>By early 1994 the only barrier to Ukraine's ability to exercise full operational control over the nuclear weapons on missiles and bombers deployed on its soil was its inability to circumvent Russian permissive action links (PALs). (from "Pulling Back from the Nuclear Brink" by Barry R. Schneider)
Just too much of fiction writers working in these think tanks to pump grants, and research funding.
Even today, go and lookup a number of articles on something very trivial, say, "Russian general military doctrine," and your will get absolutely random, and bizarre assortment of opinions not agreeing on anything, despite that the official doctrine document in Russian is not secret at all, and is easily googleable on the internet.
A lot of them are just regurgitating each other's data without any original input, or validation. A broken telephone effect ensures.
>Fourth, nuclear warheads and or delivery vehicles are equipped with switches that permit arming and fusing only when a given code is entered-these devices are called permissive action links (PALs) in the USA. Launch crews do not have these enabling codes, which are provided by higher commanders prior to actual use. All categories of strategic weapons in the FSU are believed to be covered by PALs.
>To launch an ICBM, for example, now requires a '12-digit key' inserted via a complex and apparently highly secure system, and originating with the top political and military leadership. The ICBM crews do not normally have access to be able to launch missiles, but must receive a special 'preliminary' command from the top military leadership. Then they must receive additional codes that physically unblock the missiles for which they are responsible. Only when they have received these codes and commands do the crews have the physical ability to fire any of the 10 missiles in their group , . . The crews must correctly insert the codes in three tries, with an allowable time span of several seconds between each try, or else the crews are locked out and unable to perform the launch sequence. After a certain span of time has expired, the blocking system is automatically activated.
consultable at https://www.sipri.org/sites/default/files/files/RR/SIPRIRR10...
The launch sequence was very simple, but the procedure to "turning the missile on" was highly manual, despite some automation allegedly being there "but not usually working reliably."
Most of the gear in the silo was actually comms gear. There were no fancy computers in it, and missiles were programmed offline. The provision for "online" reprogramming was there, but the officer said "we never ever tried it, except on a simulator in the academy."
Officers were never told what targets were programmed into missiles, but he said that as targets were almost never updated in his near 14 years as a launch officer, he assumed these were cities, and not military targets.
His jobs as a launch officer was basically to do nothing, but sit and wait for a command using all comms gear in his disposal.
Once the missile is "switched on," and ready, the launch was done by 2 officers turning their keys without any extra ceremony.
The "codes" were employed, but only to check the authenticity of launch, or online targeting data.