Will The Crisis In Ukraine Be Different If They Had Nuclear Weapons?

President Bill Clinton (from left), Russian President Boris Yeltsin and Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk, clasp hands after signing documents whereby the U.S. and Russia agreed to stop aiming long range nuclear missiles at each other, and the Ukraine agreed to dismantle all of its 1,800 nuclear warheads. The event took place on Jan. 14, 1994, at the Kremlin in Moscow. Diana Walker/Time

What If Ukraine Still Had Nuclear Weapons? -- Greg Myre, NPR

Ukraine appears rather helpless in the face of the Russian intervention in Crimea. But what if Ukraine still had nuclear weapons? The confrontation might look rather different, and perhaps much scarier.

When Ukraine gained independence in the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union, it inherited a nuclear arsenal that included some 1,800 warheads, making it the third largest in the world, trailing only Russia and the U.S.

Ukraine could have clung to those weapons at a time when it and many other former Soviet states faced varying degrees of turmoil. But in 1994, Ukraine agreed to relinquish them and eventually sent the warheads by train to Russia. In return, Ukraine got assurances its sovereignty would be respected.

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My Comment: It is unquestionable that if there were nuclear weapons in Ukraine .... the situation would be super tense. Unfortunately .... some Ukraine lawmakers are already demanding that Ukraine arm itself with nuclear weapons. This is not an idle threat. Ukraine does have the specialists and expertise .... plus access to nuclear materials .... to develop nuclear weapons. But what is even more frightening is the presence of groups like this .... who are a danger to everyone. To put in bluntly .... the idea that such groups could have possession of nuclear weapons is truly unthinkable.