Ukraine even transferred these missiles to the Russian Federation together with the Tu-22 at one time as debts for gas. It should be noted that it is almost impossible to shoot down X-22 missiles flying on a ballistic trajectory with the usual means of Ukrainian air defense. This 5-ton missile can be shot down by such a complex as Patriot.
by Arty_beaver
5 comments
Knowing what we know now this could have been one of the biggest mistakes made by the west in recent times (that and not taking Ruzzia to task in 2014!)
Pity Ukraine didn’t keep some of those X-22….. or did they!
Slava Ukraini!
Honor the Budapest memorandum, ARM UKRAINE!
Nobody gives a shit about any memorandums.
The Obama/Biden administration did nothing to stop Putin in 2014. Even more they strongly advised Ukrainians not to resist to the invaders during Crimea take over because “we’re working on it through the diplomatic channels, no need for “escalation””.
I hope I won’t get downvoted, but, sadly, there was no way for us to keep nuclear weapons.
First of all – Ukraine never actually had it. After USSR collapse NW remained under control of central command, based in Moscow. But yeah, it’s a lesser problem.
Bigger one was diplomacy. Nuclear warhead needs to be reassembled and reprocessed every 10-15 years to remain functional, and all infrastructure for that also remained in Russia. To assure the world that Ukraine creating it’s own infrastructure doesn’t violates the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons would be kinda tricky.
But the main problem would be money. NW is bloody expensive and in the 90s Ukraine just couldn’t allow itself that. At that time a salary of 400$ per month was considered a shitload of money, people living like that wouldn’t care much if they would need NW in 25 years – they need to eat now.
So sadly, but there was hardly any way for Ukraine to stay a nuclear power…