'Stupid, illogical' — Zelensky blasts Ukraine for relinquishing nuclear arms without strong security guarantees
'Stupid, illogical' — Zelensky blasts Ukraine for relinquishing nuclear arms without strong security guarantees
President Volodymyr Zelensky on Jan. 25 criticized Ukraine's decision to give up its nuclear weapons in the 1990s without receiving strong security guarantees in return.
Disclaimer: The article linked is from a single source with a single perspective. Make sure to cross-check information against multiple sources to get a comprehensive view on the situation.
I wish we could stop using terms like “blasts”, “slams”, etc in the news.
I feel like it’s hard to take even very serious things seriously when it sounds like middle school me drafted it.
#LEMMY COMMENTER EVISCERATES JOURNALIST'S TITLING CONVENTIONS
There's some extensions that replace slams with wrestling moves. Still wouldn't give em a click
Gonna go put some of these buzzwords alongside my US politics filter words
I can't help but imagine using that and seeing a headline with the Mankind/Undertaker copypasta put right in the middle.
As we’ve seen, “guarantees” from the U.S. mean absolutely nothing when someone like Trump is in the White House. Ukraine should have kept the nukes.
I thought the guarantees were from Russia? It wasn't the US asking Ukraine to disarm
The lesson is no country can trust any other country to defend their sovereignty. Even as individual citizens, we can't even trust our neighbors to act in their own best interests, let alone ours. There's a good chance they're dumb as fuck and will cheer the boot as it crushes their skull.
The article itself didn’t specify, but another article it linked to definitely suggests it was Russia. Can’t really blame a writer for the Kyiv Independent for assuming a local reader would already know this, but I sure didn’t.
That makes it even more absurd. If my neighbor was encouraging me to disarm, I’d be suspicious as hell.
So, Putin ignores security guarantees. Okay. Thank for encouraging me to read more on the subject!
Interesting piece of the puzzle I wasn't aware of: while Ukraine was technically a significant nuclear power, the Ukrainian government never had full control over them, nor the ability to launch them. From Wikipedia:
While all these weapons were located on Ukrainian territory, Russia controlled the launch sequence and maintained operational control of the nuclear warheads and its weapons system.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction
In the nineties, Ukraine would have come out looking quite hawkish to somehow wrest control of the weapons and then keep them for their own security. It would have prevented invasion perhaps, but it didn't seem reasonable at the time.
I do think they have a uniquely legitimate right to hold nuclear weapons in self defense. Without them it's war until the bitter end - of them or Putin's regime.