NUCLEAR WEAPOMSHow Russia Neutralized Ukraine’s Tactical Nuclear Weapons
When Ukraine declared its independence from the U.S.S.R in August 1991., Kyiv came into possession of the third largest nuclear weapons stockpile in the world, after the Soviet Union and the United States.Anestimated 2,800-4,200 tactical nuclear weapons were relinquished to Russia in a move that may have changed the course of history.
When Ukraine declared its independence from the U.S.S.R in August 1991., Kyiv came into possession of the third largest nuclear weapons stockpile in the world, after the Soviet Union and the United States.
Besides large and complex strategic missiles, Kyiv had also taken over thousands of the Soviet Union’s “tactical” nuclear devices, designed to be small enough to use on an active battlefield.
General-Lieutenant Oleksandr Skipalskiy was the head of Ukraine’s military intelligence through the 1990s. The retired military chief spoke to RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service about how an estimated 2,800-4,200 tactical nuclear weapons were relinquished to Russia in a move that may have changed the course of history.
“We were told that Russia was determined to strip Ukraine of its tactical nuclear weapons at any cost,” Skipalskiy recalls of the period following the collapse of the U.S.S.R.“This was deliberately aimed at depriving Ukraine of the simplest nuclear devices, which did not require complex storage and maintenance systems.”
Unlike long-range strategic missiles which require costly upkeep, tactical nuclear munitions can be stored for decades with minimal effort. Some tactical nukes can be as small as an artillery shell.
After Skipalskiy ordered a review into the transfer of tactical nuclear weapons to Russia, a report was compiled calling for the proposed transfer to be canceled.
In early 1992, as Russian teams were already removing the nuclear munitions, the retired intelligence head says, “I saw with my own eyes how [Ukrainian Security Service Head] Yevhen Marchuk placed our report arguing against the removal of tactical nuclear weapons into a folder and said, ‘I’m going to take this to the president.’”
For two weeks following the delivery of that report, the extraction of the weapons was paused.
“Then it got back under way without any explanation; at least I wasn’t told anything,” Skipalsky says.
“I believe [then-Ukrainian President Leonid] Kravchuk made the final decision himself. But who advised him and what arguments were put forward? That I don’t know.”
Russian crews tasked with removing the weapons, he says, worked “fast and around the clock” to load and transport the tactical nuclear warheads out of Ukraine.
When the last weapon was taken away, Skipalskiy claims, “the Russians and their supporters in Ukraine were openly celebrating, saying: ‘We totally hoodwinked the [Ukrainians], we left them the bones and took the meat!’”
