"Only one country (South Africa) has been known to ever dismantle an indigenously developed nuclear arsenal completely."
3 other countries have given up their Soviet nuclear weapons: Belarus, Kazakhstan, Ukraine
3 other countries have given up their Soviet nuclear weapons: Belarus, Kazakhstan, Ukraine
Though given the talent for engineering we're currently seeing from Ukraine, I'm not sure that Russias nuclear weapons where not developed by Ukrainians.
Anyway, the point is that those three countries gave up weapons develop and produced by the Soviet Union, not internally in those countries solely.
Other NATO countries that still have U.S. nukes under custody: Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, and Belgium.
Canada had nukes under a similar arrangement until 1984.
That's not entirely true. AFAIK, nuclear weapons in these countries were tied to control structures in Moscow and required other resources like maintenance and new materials which were placed in other parts of Soviet Union. So when these countries became independent, they couldn't realistically maintain or even use the weapons without a very significant investment.
All those who cry about nuclear weapons in the one former Soviet state clearly doesn't know what happened to the parts of the Black Sea fleet what was transferred to the one former Soviet state.
"The memoranda, signed in Patria Hall at the Budapest Convention Center with US Ambassador Donald M. Blinken amongst others in attendance,[3] prohibited the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom and the United States from threatening or using military force or economic coercion against Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan, "except in self-defence or otherwise in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations." As a result of other agreements and the memorandum, between 1993 and 1996, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine gave up their nuclear weapons.[4][5]"
In hindsight, that was wrong of course. But the logic seemed clear and everyone agreed at the time.
It has since sold off a lot of this due to corruption. However, just a couple of nukes could have avoided this whole fiasco. There are modern, deprecated (read: late 80s) launch facilities, even one of which could have prevented the war (possibly).
Yes. Or it could have resulted in Ukraine using the same weapons to blackmail its neighbors in the same way Russia is doing now. The point to the decision was risk management. There were zero "good" options for what to do with the USSR nuclear arsenal. But leaving it all under the unitary control of a giant established military bureaucracy that had managed not to blow up the world for 50 years seemed "less bad" than just handing them out like candy to all the follow-on bootstrapped governments.