Inheriting the Bomb: The Collapse of the USSR and the Nuclear Disarmament of Ukraine (Johns Hopkins Nuclear History and Contemporary Affairs)

The collapse of the Soviet Union unleashed the specter of the largest wave of nuclear proliferation in history.

Why did Ukraine ultimately choose the path of nuclear disarmament? The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 left its nearly 30,000 nuclear weapons spread over the territories of four newly sovereign states: Belarus, Kazakhstan, the Russian Federation, and Ukraine.