Chernobyl helped to bring down the Soviet Union and constrained independent Ukraine’s nuclear options. Galvanized by Chernobyl, Ukraine’s steadfast pull away from Moscow became a major cause of the Soviet empire’s eventual demise. Belarus and Kazakhstan, who also inherited shards of the Soviet strategic arsenal, paid attention to Ukraine’s nuclear gambit. Even among those Ukrainian politicians who were apprehensive of a potential Russian threat, few conceived of using nuclear weapons as a deterrent. Whether Russia would have engaged in such actions had Ukraine not given up its nuclear weapons is unanswerable.

Source: Washington Post July 15, 2019 11:00 UTC