Comment by sebastiennight
6 hours ago
I knew about it, but your post is the first I've heard that SA no longer had those (I only clicked the link because you used the past tense!). I actually thought that no country had ever withdrawn their nuclear program.
This might be the most amazing and hope-inspiring I've read online this week, so I'm grateful for you sharing that link!
Ukraine also gave up its nuclear weapons, as it regained autonomy with the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
My understanding is that they gave up the USSR's weapons (and handed them to Russia), rather than them having built, owned and dismantled the weapons outright through their own nuclear program.
They could have spent substantial effort to make those weapons "theirs" (I've heard people simplify this as "they didn't have the codes but could figure them out") but it would have cost them dearly in international sanctions, versus the assurances and aid they could negotiate by relinquishing them.
That’s true. But Ukraine wasn’t just babysitting weapons made totally elsewhere, either. There was substantial expertise, research and manufacturing built up in Ukraine during the Soviet era.
I think it’s true enough to say they gave up nuclear weapons, even if they didn’t wholly own the nuclear weapons.