Russia-Ukraine sea clash puts spotlight on 1994 agreement

[turbinetree]

Source: NBC News

Washington paid half a billion dollars for Ukraine to pass 5,000 nuclear weapons to Russia to be dismantled after brokering the deal.

Nov. 29, 2018 / 10:52 AM EST
By Alexander Smith and Yuliya Talmazan


Twenty five years ago, Ukraine was the world's third-largest nuclear power, with more warheads than the United Kingdom, France and China combined.

The government in Kiev inherited this arsenal after the breakup of the Soviet Union, finding itself in possession of an estimated 5,000 nuclear weapons, more than 170 intercontinental ballistic missiles and several dozen nuclear bombers.

In 1994, Ukraine agreed to dismantle this stockpile in return for a promise from Russia that the country wouldn't be attacked.

But after Russian forces fired at and seized three Ukrainian naval vessels on Sunday, Kiev has pointed to this deal and suggested that the U.S. and Europe should do more to protect it against the vastly superior Russian military.

Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/russia-ukraine-sea-clash-puts-spotlight-1994-agreement-n941601

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I wonder if the orange buffoon and the foreign team of enablers fully understand what this Agreement means.................



November 3, 2020 cannot get here fast enough.....................

[ffr]

1. Weakling tRump emboldens Putin's aggression. n/t

[TomVilmer]

2. Those warheads gave their energy to 10 percent of all electricity produced in the United States!

In total eight billion dollars was paid by Washington to Russia, but this was a good commercial investment - besides being good for world peace. The Megatons to Megawatts Program was a unique, commercially financed government-industry partnership in which bomb-grade uranium from dismantled Warsaw Pact nuclear warheads was recycled into low enriched uranium used to produce fuel for American nuclear power plants.

After 20 years in December 2013, the program was completed: 500 metric tons of bomb-grade highly enriched uranium have been recycled into more than 14,000 metric tons of low enriched uranium – permanently eliminating enough bomb-grade material for 20,000 nuclear warheads. Virtually the entire U.S. nuclear reactor fleet participated in this program by using fuel fabricated with low enriched uranium from the Megatons to Megawatts program.

The Megatons to Megawatts program significantly enhanced world security by steadily reducing stockpiles of nuclear bomb-grade materials, while creating a clean, valuable resource—uranium for use in nuclear fuel. For two decades, up to 10 percent of the electricity produced in the United States was generated by fuel fabricated using low enriched uranium from the Megatons to Megawatts program.

https://www.centrusenergy.com/who-we-are/history/megatons-to-megawatts/

- I am against nuclear bombs and also nuclear power plants, but this was a brilliant idea. Boil the rest of the bombs as well!