Join Harvard's Davis Center for a talk with Mariana Budjeryn on post-Soviet Ukrainian leaders' conceptions of the meaning of post-Soviet nuclear inheritance for their newly independent state. After the Soviet collapse in 1991, Ukraine became the host of world’s third largest nuclear arsenal. Its pre-independence intention to rid itself of nuclear weapons soon gave way to a more nuanced nuclear stance that developed into a claim of rightful nuclear “ownership.” This claim alarmed the West and spurred accusations from Russia that Ukraine was seeking to retain nuclear weapons as a deterrent. The talk draws on extensive archival and oral history research to reconstruct deliberations of Ukraine's political leaders about the meaning of post-Soviet nuclear inheritance for their newly independent state. It finds that while Ukraine's technological capacity to establish independent operational control over the strategic nuclear arms deployed in Ukraine was greater than has been commonly assumed, Ukraine's political leaders eschewed considering their nuclear inheritance in deterrence terms, which contributed to their ultimate decision to forgo the nuclear option. 

Speaker:

Mariana Budjeryn, research fellow, Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Harvard University