Seriously. How many lives would have been saved if Kyiv had kept some of her nukes?
The entire scenario rewrites 30 years of history, everything would be different. Would Russia have invaded? Would Ukraine have made itself more of an international player if it were on the list of nuclear powers? Would Ukraine have actually used nukes after an invasion? Could their allies have pressured Ukraine to avoid a nuclear war? Would Russia be in the same position or is today if Ukraine left the USSR as a nuclear power?
What you are saying is that Germany could use US nukes, and so is de facto a nuclear-armed nation, and so is any country that hosts US nukes.
> They were soviet nukes. They had as much control over them as Germany has over the US nukes parked in Germany.
The Soviet Union ceased to exist in 1991. We are talking about what happened after that.
You compared the situation with US nukes in Germany today. But that is not the same situation at all. The US has not ceased to exist like the Soviet Union did.
And if it did, it is far from obvious which US states will control the nukes in the mainland ex-USA. That would be the parallel with the Soviet Union and Ukraine/Russia. Not US nukes in a foreign state.
Do you not see a difference in comparing post-USSR Ukraine with Germany while allied with the very much alive US? Hosting US military installations that house nuclear weapons is very different from hosting abandoned nuclear weapons of a state actor that no longer exists.
Also, Ukraine was a significant engineering powerhouse while part of the Soviet Union, they had the people to both build and maintain nukes.
Who guarded the ex-Soviet nukes in Ukraine? Ukrainian troops, or Russian?
Since Russia had to negotiate to transfer the weapons from Ukraine to Russia, it stands to reason that Russia did not physically control them. Otherwise, it would just have transferred them on its own.
Do you have any sources to back up your claims in this thread?