The virtual seminar will be held from 12:30 to 2:00 p.m. (E.T.)
The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the former Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic holding a large number of nuclear warheads, missiles, and bombers. By the end of 1994, Ukraine had acceded as a non-nuclear-weapon state to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and began the transfer of nuclear warheads to Russia and elimination of delivery vehicles. This presentation will outline the international and domestic politics of Ukraine’s decision to rid itself of the former Soviet nuclear weapons and join the nonproliferation regime. It also will consider the relevance of Ukraine’s disarmament decision in view of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine and the crises of the global nuclear order.
About the speaker: Mariana Budjeryn is a Senior Research Associate at the Project on Managing the Atom, based in Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center. Her research focuses on the international non-proliferation regime, arms control, nuclear crises, and post-Soviet nuclear history. She has held appointments as a visiting professor at Tufts University and at the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt. She is the author of Inheriting the Bomb: The Collapse of the USSR and the Nuclear Disarmament of Ukraine.