The Kyiv Independent: More than two-thirds of Ukrainians favor idea of restoring nuclear arms arsenal, poll shows

[Dennis Donovan]

The Kyiv Independent - More than two-thirds of Ukrainians favor idea of restoring nuclear arms arsenal, poll shows

by Boldizsar Gyori
December 23, 2024 3:31 PM

About 73% of Ukrainians supported the idea of Ukraine restoring its nuclear weapons, according to a poll published by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology on Dec. 23.

The poll was conducted around the 30th anniversary of the signing of the Budapest Memorandum, under which Ukraine gave up its Soviet-era nuclear arsenal in exchange for international security guarantees.

Around half of the respondents said they would support the development of nuclear weapons even at the price of losing Western aid and coming under sanctions.

Despite discussions in the media, Kyiv affirmed its adherence to the nuclear non-proliferation policy and said it has no plans of building nuclear weapons, calling for NATO membership as the only viable security guarantee.

The pollsters noted that in 1994 only one-third of Ukrainians supported the idea of their state retaining a nuclear arsenal.

/snip

[Igel]

1. HIndsight sometimes is in much better focus than foresight.

Agreeing to Russian security pledges was insanity at the time.

But it was cheap, easy, feel good, and all the demilitarization and peace dividend was a big political plus for a lot of politicians who'd never have to face the consequences but only the benefits.

Even now we have a military problem. Ukraine's using more artillery shells per day than we can make, meaning every shipment draws down supplies that we'd need for use elsewhere if anything truly bad happened. The assumption is that the bad thing(s) won't happen. But that was the assumption in '93 and '94, now, wasn't it? and that if we needed to, we could ramp up production quickly. Well, almost three years in and the "ramping up" of something like artillery shell production the US still uses decades old technology--even Europe's outclassed and surpassed us in that regard. Three years of "ramping up" with a large amount of money available for investment and we still are drawing down supplies.