@yaongingy
I would research a bit more into the 'they should have kept the nuclear weapons' narrative. People will say this with the inference being that they could use this as a deterrence and that they were cajoled into giving them up. That is not the case really.
Everyone knew at the time that Ukraine did not have the infrastructure or ability to maintain the weapons that they were 'left' with. They were also still extremely worried about another issue akin to the Chernobyl disaster -- this was still very fresh in their minds.
Then you have to remember that they would only have been able to use the shorter-range weapons. Russia still had command of the longer-range ICBMs and controlled them.
Even a large portion of the ICBMs were coming up on the end of their service life. Then what would Ukraine do with those, etc.?
The non-proliferation part of it was good for the world for sure. But this is something everyone was striving for at the time as the Soviet Union was being dismantled. Even the USA was creating a bipartisan bill headed up by one of the last decent Democrats, Sam Nunn, to actually help pay for the dismantling and cleanup of the weapons in the former Soviet countries.
Certainly Ukraine knew the Budapest deal was not a binding agreement. They just accepted that along with their own great desire to unburden themselves.
Most of this was known or speculated at the time.
But you can go read all of this in the National Archives release from last year or so that was made public.
The real issues that caused the 'aggression' need to be examined without using the lack of nuclear weapons as a copout of sorts.
The counter argument would be obviously that Ukraine KNEW they did NOT have nuclear weapons now. Etc., etc.
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