we must finish it and we must win. every thursday at 21:15 in the project velikiy lviv talks about the most important things, on the espresso tv channel. vasyl winter's big broadcast. two hours of air time, two hours of your time, two hours to learn about the war and what the world is about. two hours to keep up with economic and sports news. two hours in the company are favorite. presenters, presenters who have become like family to many, as well as distinguished guests of the studio: the events of the day in two hours, vasyl zima's big broadcast, a project for intelligent and caring people, in the evening on espresso. the informational morning continues on the espresso tv channel, oksana vysochanska and i continue to communicate with...

extraordinary personalities, now in the studio we have yuriy kostenko, the former minister of environmental protection, a member of the commission on nuclear policy and environmental safety under the president of ukraine, and he is also a deputy of five convocations and the author of a huge book on the history of nuclear disarmament of ukraine, this is such a large and thorough material, we will talk about him in particular now, well, mr. yuriy, tell me, please, since the 15th year... there was the first edition of this book, now it is the second, how many people worked on this thorough work, and what it is about, i will add briefly to the same question, what prompted you to start about it's to write, to tell, so that people will know, because you started the work even before the invasion, before the first invasion in 14, why did you understand, how did you know that it's important to explain, now it's completely new in... it looks and extremely

relevant in the context of today's general political situation? well actually the book began to take shape, i would say so, during the work of the ukrainian parliament on the strategy of nuclear disarmament of ukraine. er, at that time i headed a special working commission that dealt with this issue. later, in 1992, when... i became a member of the government, i was also the first head of the ukrainian government delegation at the negotiations on nuclear disarmament. my numerous meetings, negotiations, as well as the documents that accompanied this process, went to my personal archive. this archive was replenished almost to completion of this epic of nuclear disarmament of ukraine, transcripts of meetings. of the supreme council, discussions

at meetings of committees, commissions, all this was in my archive, as well as a huge number of publications of the western press, the russian press, which carried out a kind of information war regarding nuclear disarmament, so during all this time, it is probably more than 10 years, a colossal amount of these materials accumulated, i understood that sooner or later it would be necessary to summarize everything and... and publish a book, but there was no time, overloaded with political work, activities, did not allow this to do, and when the 14th year was approaching, i already felt that russia was moving towards direct aggression, and as soon as the revolution of dignity took place, the annexation of crimea, that is, the beginning of the war, the legal war of russia against ukraine, i abandoned everything, freed myself and began to work actively, went to generalization. about a year and

in 2015 the first edition was published, then there was work with harvard university on the english-language version, the history of the nuclear disarmament of ukraine, there are already two such editions at harvard, and this year, thanks to the support of such a ukrainian enterprise obolon, and finally the second edition in the ukrainian language came out, because the first edition was small and this edition... a thousand copies, i am now engaged in presenting the book, gathering audiences, explaining what happened, you are absolutely right that the situation is completely different now , than in the 90s, when practically no one attached importance to the issue of nuclear disarmament in ukraine, and it all went mostly under the hood with such er-er homophore, and everything happened contrary to, the most terrible, contrary to the decisions. the ukrainian

parliament, as the legislative power, or then in the early 90s, when it all started, did you see and understand ukrainians, at least in someone in ukraine? what all this can lead to nuclear disarmament, ukraine was in fact the third nuclear power in the world, and do you see now that it was possible that there was a moment when it was possible to stop and not bring the process to an end, or was it all decided unequivocally and was not in we had fewer opportunities to say no, i was in the opposition in the verkhovna rada of the first convocation. and among the opposition there were many dissidents, personalities known to you in lviv, chornovil, lukyanenko, khmara, mountaineers, when the topic was discussed in the verkhovna rada, at first it was a special

parliamentary hearing, then many of these dissidents speaking said that sooner or later russia would start a direct war against ukraine, so there was no... trust among at least the ukrainian opposition to russia, this is the first thing that must be clearly remembered, secondly, the verkhovna rada passed a decision on the destruction of nuclear weapons, and not on transferring them to someone, and when our commission already in 1992 formulated this strategy of phased nuclear disarmament of ukraine, which was called economically beneficial strategy for ukraine. nuclear disarmament should have been completed when ukraine became a full member of nato and the european union. this path was supported by the united states of america already in 1992. in december, we received, well, the president

of ukraine kravchuk received such a memorandum from the us state department that the us is ready to assist ukraine in the poison process. disarmament with the acquisition of nato membership by ukraine, 92nd year. when this document appeared in the us jdpi, when in april 1992, the first decision adopted by the verkhovna rada of ukraine, which had force the law, the resolution of the verkhovna rada of april 9, 1992, regarding the ban on the export of tactical nuclear weapons from ukraine, it was exported without any decision of the parliament, namely the parliament... on behalf of the ukrainian people has the constitutional right to dispose of state property, that is, it was all done by the executive power, then the so-called ministry of defense of ukraine, which was just beginning to be formed without any legal authorization from the parliament. and the verkhovna rada stopped

this process. the united states immediately reacted, they proposed a process nuclear weapons to be connected with ukraine's acquisition of membership in nato, as a collective security system, for some reason. today we are finally getting there. so you say, were there other options? of course they were. then, in 1993, the united states of america, after the verkhovna rada rejected president kravchuk's proposals to ratify the treaty on the reduction of strategic offensive arms and the treaty on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons as a nuclear-free country. it was in june 1993 . parliamentary delegation of ukraine, which arrived in the usa at that time, received a clear plan of interaction with the usa. with ukraine regarding the movement towards nuclear-free status. this plan provided for a strategic partnership with the united states. this plan provided for an international fund to finance nuclear weapons. this is a very expensive operation. according to the calculations of american experts, only part of the destruction

of ukraine's strategic nuclear arsenal cost ukraine 6 billion dollars. at that time, ukraine had a budget of 10 billion dollars per year, the economy allowed. conditions were terrible, hyperinflation. and everything else, the states took it into account and proposed such a strategy. next, and importantly, the states knew that we were totally dependent on energy supplies from russia. 100% of nuclear fuel was received from russia, 80% of oil and gas, and therefore the states proposed a quick plan of action on how to avoid the energy blockade by russia, that is, a very multifaceted plan for cooperation with ukraine. what did the executive power do? of ukraine headed by kravchuk. at that time, i was the very first head of the government delegation at the negotiations, and as i was also a deputy and a minister, i was guided by the decisions of the parliament, and not, i apologize, by the instructions of the kremlin. when the kremlin found out about this entire plan of work with the usa, they included

the traditional operation, kostenko must be replaced, vice prime minister shmarov was put in my place as the head of the ukrainian delegation. in negotiations with russia, and he immediately initials the agreement on the transfer of all nuclear warheads to russia. russia made such a somersault, sorry, personnel, as a result. what the russians then told the americans: there is nothing to talk about in the three-front format, because the usa was ready to join the negotiation process regarding nuclear disarmament, it was agreed upon, by the way, clinton in july 1993 with yeltsin at the g7 summit in tokyo, yeltsin agreed, it was july, already in august all agreements were signed, that everything goes to russia and so on. and the like, but you know, in addition to strategic weapons, they also transferred strategic aviation, cruise missiles

that are flying over us today, you know, this was already done completely without the fact that there was a decision of the parliament, it was already done, well, in some way, you know , such an absurd way, because already at that time, russia's aggressive behavior was clear and known, and already at the time, as you are talking about me, i understood that sooner or later, russia... personally, i am talking about myself, will fight with ukraine, why? and because russia started this war after the declaration of ukrainian independence, immediately, remember the trade wars, remember tuzl, remember the many, many things that russia did to bring ukraine back into its interests. where did this concept go, first nato and then the completion of nuclear disarmament, so that these the processes coincided, why, why it didn’t happen, it’s probably here already... we need to turn to the history of the ukrainian government, which began to rule ukraine

after the declaration of independence, you know that the composition of the parliament practically did not change, as it was during the ukrainian ssr, the communist majority , it remained so until 1994, by the way, here we must recognize the mistake of the ukrainian young democracy, the movement, in particular, because we could achieve early elections. of the ukrainian parliament after the declaration of independence, when a referendum and elections were held at the same time president, and then elections to the ukrainian parliament had to be held, but the then leadership of the people's movement of ukraine for perestroika had not matured to such a state, so they thought that with the communists we would be able to build an independent, beautiful, prosperous ukraine, as pavlychko wrote in his poems, he believed kravchuk, by the way, i am talking about pavlychk specifically, but as practice has shown, kravchuk stayed with a team of government officials, by

the way, i was in the government, and two more representatives of the opposition were in the government, academician yukhnovsky and a pensioner, an economist, everything else remained unchanged, so the communist mentality did not accept the strategy of membership in nato, because it was always the enemy, well, in the soviet union, the mentality did not... accept, in particular, the states and the west as partners, because it was the enemy in the soviet union, they trusted russia more, when you take the transcripts, here are these transcripts presented in the book of speeches of people's deputies during the discussion of the topic of nuclear disarmament and the ratification of the treaty on the reduction of offensive strategic weapons, then they spoke there for the most part communists with theses that russia would ever attack... only a madman could attack ukraine, well, they understood these, as

the nationalists called us, but replaced it with the word crazy, it cannot be, such was the mood in power, that's why they were mood in power, therefore the entire strategy that the usa presented and proposed was actually rejected by the top leadership of ukraine. but now, when this issue has actually been reassessed, and we understand that... there was an attack on ukraine and russia did attack our state, there are there are often thoughts of returning the nuclear status to ukraine, and even our viewers on youtube write to us, but when we raise this or that topic related to nuclear weapons, they write , saying, why can't ukraine now return the nuclear status? what is your opinion on this, you smile skeptically, i if very briefly called such proposals. or complete ignorance, or the russian

special services continue to spread the theory that ukraine aspires to become a nuclear country, do you remember when putin declared war or a special operation in ukraine, he said that one of the goals of special operations is to prevent ukraine from becoming a nuclear state again, threatening the world with nuclear weapons, that is why these specialists in quotation marks work with such messages, now... professional assessment of what we can or cannot do, ukraine really had the third in the world's nuclear potential, which, if we talk about quantitative characteristics, is unsurpassed today. in what the usa and russia have. moreover, we had more than 400 tactical nuclear weapons, the us today only has 500 warheads, tactical nuclear weapons, russia 1.7, we had 400, strategic 200 on average there according to various estimates, so such a colossal number of nuclear weapons allowed ukraine, even ukraine, to

store these warheads at our special facilities. to store nuclear weapons, until today, by the way, under international control, we used them to process nuclear warheads for ukrainian -made fuel in order not to depend on russia, then no one would attack us, by the way, this is so that you understand , ee israel, which does not announce that it is a nuclear country, but when it threatened, he says, we can use nuclear weapons and no one attacks him, well , i mean ... the arab world, so nuclear weapons are primarily a deterrent, and when we had all this in our hands, and when, again, the west proposed: well, you will be a good example that the world is moving towards nuclear-free, because this is a threat to humanity in general, nuclear weapons, thermonuclear war, but your movement

should end in joining nato, and already a collective system security, which... also has nuclear weapons, the united states, britain, france, will protect you and when ukraine, i apologize, did what it did, transferred its nuclear weapons into the hands of a potential aggressor, the west did not understand such things, you know? and here, when they say that the usa pressured us, they did not pressure us to give everything, they said, we will gradually help you to disarm with the simultaneous movement in nato. now, when all this is gone, suddenly there are ideas about returning to nuclear. well , i am also a physicist, because before becoming a deputy i worked at the paton institute, and my phd thesis is devoted to plasma technologies, i also understand the technical topic of what enrichment of uranium and plutonium is, so in order for our, for example, spent nuclear fuel to turn into highly enriched uranium and

plutonium, special production is necessary to form it. the necessary funds, and now imagine the situation, today the west gives us all the weapons there, finances them so that we can pay pensions, how the state pays, salaries to civil servants and all the rest, and now we will say: give us money so that we can build e- e production of highly enriched uranium and plutonium, and therefore and nuclear weapons, well, you understand how it will look, well, from our side... or in relation to our partners, well, and the last thing, we signed the agreement on and ratified that ukraine will adhere to the principles of non-proliferation nuclear weapons and not to acquire nuclear weapons, i mean the treaty on the non -proliferation of nuclear weapons, as a nuclear-free country, this is already a violation of international law, well, look at iran, look at

north korea, which is under sanctions, so in summary you can unequivocally say, technically we can do. but we have no finances, and we will be violators of international law and will be subject to international sanctions when we try to do what amateurs and supporters of returning to nuclear status in ukraine propose. it's been about 30 years since this concept of less nuclear weapons in the world, nuclear disarmament and so on, today that we are in the 24th year of nato, there are ongoing negotiations to deploy even more nuclear weapons because there are ... on the part of russia and china, we have calculations of the international company for the elimination of nuclear weapons, and so the nine nuclear states of the world continue to modernize their nuclear weapons for the 23rd year, the numbers on nuclear arsenals, these countries spent 91, almost a billion dollars, as it so happened that we were talking here, the world

said, we need less nuclear weapons, very little time passes, we still... remember what happened, even the cold war, many remember from stories, and some remember how it was in fact, and here it is suddenly the opposite, the growth of nuclear potential in world, what went wrong, here we have to talk about the mistakes of western strategies and analysts, do you remember the topic of the budapest memorandum, the so-called security assurances, which were interpreted as security guarantees, the west understood perfectly, i mean, the usa, britain , france, that these are not security guarantees, although, again, this is the kind of document kravchuk requested. the ministry of foreign affairs was preparing all these so-called budapest agreements, also realizing that these were not security guarantees, because at least western diplomats explained that they

were political assurances of cooperation, when there will be threats to you, and no system that guarantees, as article five of the nato charter, that in the event of an attack on ukraine, they undertake to defend us, this is the first, second, that when... the world saw that the budapest memorandum was distracted as security guarantees, well, as in world politics, the 14th war started here, and there was practically no reaction, and one of the so-called guarantors started the war, and then, instead of rethinking in all the wrong politics of the west, i'm talking about the west, in relation to russia, because the west... tried for a very long time to democratize it, especially during the yeltsin period. the west turned a blind eye to the fact that putin began the process of forming

a fundamentally different policy of russia, an aggressive, neo-imperial policy, a threat to democracy . what are truly international agreements, what are international guarantees? and in this sense, the west has not shown, by the way, until today , determination to prevent any aggression in in the world it should be stopped by forcing the aggressor to peace, first of all, by sanctions and everything else. now you are absolutely right, and this is already evidenced by the figures you mentioned, regarding the fact that instead of the ukrainian example of the destruction of the third world's nuclear potential, it has become an example. about the denuclearization of the world, today we see a completely reversed process, they are starting to talk, imagine about nuclear weapons in japan at

the political level, in germany, which was always afraid to talk about any aggression there after the second world war, and even poland starts talking about either place us nuclear weapons on our territory, or we will think about our defense there, because we are closest to the borders of russia, which... constantly threatens destabilization, that is, you raised a key topic, the world went into destruction, chaos, the entire system of international security after the second world war was destroyed by russia, a new system must be created, a system based on the unity of democracy, because they recognize the right, recognize international agreements, and on the fact that any aggression by totalitarian countries, immediately received a worthy serve on the principle of coercion of aggression. aggressor to peace, we literally have 30 seconds, please summarize, do you think that it can happen that the world will actually destroy itself with the help of

nuclear weapons, is it possible to stop this process yet? well, in fact, i personally believe that we are at the stage of the third world war, only on our territory, putin constantly declares that he is not at war with ukraine, he is at war with nato on the territory of ukraine, expanding his security zone, then an increasing number of countries are involved in this confrontation, and very much in why does this repeat the experience of the second world war, so in this sense, the truth is the last word for god and the lord god only knows what and how it should end, mr. yuriy, yuriy kostenko was with us, a physicist, and also in the past the minister of environmental protection of the natural environment and nuclear security of ukraine and the author of the book history of nuclear disarmament of ukraine, this is... a large volume, by the way, all the money from the sale of this book goes to the armed forces of ukraine, a small pause on the espresso broadcast, and we will continue, there are discounts,

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