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Comment by adrian_b | Hacker News Reader

Ukraine had the nukes in physical possession and they had enough expertise to eventually disassemble them and replace the electronics.

Choosing to not do this to avoid a hypothetical external aggression was a bad choice, because they were invaded anyway.

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This isn't like Russia just shut off the lights. The control systems are designed specifically and solely to make it impossible for a third party to steal/activate the weapons, so I think simply assuming that Ukraine could achieve such is unjustified.

And Ukraine's where they're at today because of bad decisions. Russia's negotiations to end the war started on literally day 2. And they involved absolutely no land concessions or anything like that - the big issue was not joining NATO. Such offer would now be labeled a crushing to defeat for Russia, given how the war is going.

> Russia's negotiations to end the war started on literally day 2. And they involved absolutely no land concessions or anything like that

You've been there, right?

And do you know the meaning of the word "literally"?

Jeez, you russian clowns.

The war began on February 24th. The first face to face meeting was on the 28th. By March they basically had a treaty worked out with nothing but details remaining to sort out. Then Ukraine chose to abruptly end the talks following the intervention of the West, allegedly Boris John in particular.

There's a somewhat reasonable timeline of the talks themselves, til their end here. [1] But the NYTimes is being a bit disingenuous. The early talks called for the recognition of the independence of Donbas, but under Ukraine. The contested regions were to be given a special status, probably akin to something like Chechnya under Russia or perhaps Puerto Rico under the US. So Ukraine would control these regions, but simultaneously they'd have a significant degree of autonomy and independence. In any case, by March even this issue had been withdrawn.

[1] - https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/06/15/world/europe/...

  > Then Ukraine chose to abruptly end the talks following the intervention of the West, allegedly Boris John in particular.

Didn't happen. You keep repeating a misquoted soundbite from one of Ukraine's negotiators.

David Arkhamia said that after the Bucha massacre was uncovered, western governments stopped pressuring Ukraine into halting the war at any cost (including surrender). This was Boris Johnson's message too.

Russian propaganda put a spin on it, misrepresenting the "reduction of western pressure on Ukraine to surrender" as "western pressure on Ukraine to fight". This supports the overall propaganda narrative that Ukraine is resisting the Russian invasion only because they are forced to by foreign governments, and not because they want to be free, independent and, not live under the Russian boot.

That's all the substance there is behind this "Boris Johnson forced Ukraine to fight" story.

No an entire nation state plus likely EU or US cooperation could certainly not reverse engineer some Soviet Cold War era electronics. Lol.

Even in the present times it's unlikely either of the US or EU would want Ukraine anywhere near nukes, but that was even more true in the 90s. Prior to this war the West itself had been engaged in endless propaganda against Ukraine that was largely identical in message to what Russia used when invading. Here's [1] one article among countless you can find with such, from a USAID connected guy no less.

[1] - https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cohen-ukraine-commentary/...

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