Didn't Ukraine get rid of their nukes cause we said we would protect them?
i had to look this up.
Ukraine gave up its' nukes in 1994.
When Zelensky asked to join NATO, that's when Putin lost his shit (IMHO), started his full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Something about a capability for a pre-emptive first strike, decapitation strike.
that would be like Xi stationing ICBMs in Mexico. Trump would lose his shit. Biden would just be ho-hum, what flavor of ice cream today. Shades of the JFK Cuban missile crisis, in reverse.
unfortunately the undo button doesn't work here. no do-overs.
broad-brush, skipping over Reagan-Gorbachev "not one inch", Crimea (2014), Donbas, etc.
1994-2014, that's a lot of stable status-quo. just my laymans take.
here's a good 10-minute historical step-by-step perspective by a subject matter expert. Jeffrey Sachs. excerpt of a 1hr+ Q&A.
I like his line, we got your back, not your front, something like that. Yeah, we, the US, we screwed Ukraine. Kuleana's type of US geopolitical meddling.