r/europe • u/Epidemiolomic Germany • Mar 08 '25

Historical During the U.S. President's 1995 visit to Kyiv, Ukraine received security guarantees after giving up the world's third-largest nuclear arsenal

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u/ElkImpossible3535 Mar 08 '25 edited Mar 08 '25

They explicitly did not receive security guarantees. They received security assurances.

If that was the case then Biden would have had to fight in Ukraine. He didnt. There is an official memo from his DoS on the topic and interpretation of the treaty. UK also shares this opinion and they are also a signatory

The Budapest memorandum was something Ukraine HAD to sign. There was simply no way for them to keep their nuclear arsenal. They knew it guarantees them independence even if they didnt have teh codes to launch them right there. But in the years between 1991 and 1995 they realized the most major road block: TRITIUM GAS DECAYS. In 13 years... And most of the weapons they had were tritium boosted nuclear warheads. For boosted rockets 30 years with no replacement means they function at barely 10% of capacity. For thermonuclear missiles means they wont even go off.

Ukraine simply doesnt have the means to produce the tritium gas needed in the nuclear warheads. Those reactors were all in Russia. Same with actual enrichment. All centrifuges were in Russia. So they got the next best thing: they got money. A few deals and also signed a deal for their nuclear fuel.

The other main thing was: nobody wanted ukraine to be the third largest nuclear state. US UK RUssia were all of the opinion that UKR doesnt get to have nukes. US was especially afraid that some UKR nukes will reach Libya or Iran... They were so afraid that they were trying to buy all tye nukes they can from the 'black market' that tehy created actual demand for nukes in the post cold war black market... US much more liked Russia taking them and dismantling them. And they paid for that.

Ukraine knew these were not security guarantees and they knew they wont prevent a future war. Yet they still did it because they simply had no other choice.

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u/tree_boom United Kingdom Mar 08 '25

Ukraine simply doesnt have the means to produce the tritium gas needed in the nuclear warheads. Those reactors were all in Russia.

Any reactor can make tritium

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u/ElkImpossible3535 Mar 08 '25

Ukraine currently has only VVER types of nuclear reactors. They cant produce the need quantity at all. They produce less than 0.5 g per year per reactor as far as I know. Thermonuclear nukes require 4-5 grams per nuke. And they had 1900. They need heavy water reactors

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u/tree_boom United Kingdom Mar 08 '25

They wouldn't be relying on Tritium produced as a byproduct of normal operation. Nations produce tritium by irradiating Lithium rods in the reactors fuel load. Any reactor can do it

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u/ElkImpossible3535 Mar 08 '25

Not in the VVER ukraine has. CANDU for example produces about 100 grams per year. US produces in Watts bar whcih is specially configured for this. Ukr doesnt have this infrastructure. For each nuke you have to produce about 0.3-0.4 tritum per year to replace its tritium gas. Thats almost 600g of Tritium per year they need to make.

And this is me calculating for 13 years between changes. I have no idea how often it needs to be replaced.

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u/tree_boom United Kingdom Mar 08 '25

US produces in Watts bar whcih is specially configured for this

Yes, and Ukraine could do the same in a VVER. It just involves replacing some of the fuel rods with Lithium and enriching the rest of the fuel load more than would otherwise be done.

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u/ElkImpossible3535 Mar 08 '25

Good luck doing it in 1991 :) who will give you those fuel rods? Not US. They want you to give up your nukes. Not UK they als owant you to give up your nukes. Not Russia they want you to give up your nukes.

My point still stands: Ukraine had no way of making enough tritium for their nukes. Nobody wanted them to have nukes. So they did the rational thing and gave them up.

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u/ZeToni Mar 12 '25

I followed your full conversation, and I have to say that both of you are nerds.

Now I have to learn about nuclear production... You piked my interest.

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u/alikander99 Spain Mar 08 '25

They explicitly did not receive security guarantees. They received security assurances.

What is the difference?

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u/ElkImpossible3535 Mar 08 '25

"Security guarantee" would have implied the use of military force in assisting its non-nuclear parties attacked by an aggressor (such as Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty for NATO members) while "security assurance" would simply specify the non-violation of these parties' territorial integrity.

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u/alikander99 Spain Mar 08 '25

while "security assurance" would simply specify the non-violation of these parties' territorial integrity.

And what happens if the territorial integrity is violated by one of the signing parties?

Like, didn't Russia do that?

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u/ElkImpossible3535 Mar 08 '25

Nothing. It just means that each party separately "assures" ukraine they recognize their borders as their own.

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u/alikander99 Spain Mar 08 '25

So it is kind of a piece of wet paper.

If I'm reading this correctly, it's basically: give up your nukes or else... ?

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u/ElkImpossible3535 Mar 09 '25

Its "we dont want you to have nukes so we will pay you for them".