The Main Lesson of Ukraine (1994-2025)

The painful and bloody experience of Ukraine has shown that if you give up your nuclear weapons in exchange for security guarantees, you will eventually have to surrender part of your territory to one guarantor and your natural resources to another under new "security guarantees."

We don't yet know how it will end, but for now, Trump's blackmail is leading in this direction.

Let me remind you that in 1994 (under pressure primarily from the U.S.), Ukraine gave up about 1,100 nuclear warheads and strategic bomber aviation, the third-largest nuclear arsenal in the world, valued at over a trillion dollars, in exchange for security guarantees from the U.S., the UK, and Russia. In 2014, one of our guarantors attacked us with war (and, by the way, is launching missiles at us from the very bombers we handed over to them, the Tu-95). Our second guarantor, the U.S., even under Biden, has proven to be a very poor guarantor: just consider, getting roughly (metaphorically speaking) 30 Abrams tanks and 50 HIMARS vehicles... in exchange for 1,100 nuclear warheads is a very bad deal! With Trump's arrival, all this treachery takes on a more vulgar and blatant appearance. I believe we won't surrender and will stand strong with Europe, but the U.S. in this story has already completely lost its good reputation.

I know that the U.S. is very diverse, and it’s not fair to equate Trump with all Americans. It turns out that we are divided across the world not so much by nations, but by our deeply held beliefs, and I am very grateful to our friends from the U.S. and other countries. I don’t forget that we have many friends in the U.S., but unfortunately, the current direction of the U.S. is being shaped by Trump and his supporters.

I sense that 2025 brings even more turmoil to the world, and a civil war could start in the U.S. itself, or in the most moderate scenario, Trump might be killed by Americans themselves (though he won’t become a national hero like Kennedy).

Two profiles, one nature?

The main lesson of Ukraine, as stated in my headline, is sarcastically answered in the first paragraph. If we set aside the biting irony, it can be seriously formulated as follows: don’t trust anyone, no treaties, no guarantees, no alliances or blocs! In a critical moment, only the strength of your own army and the heroism of your people can protect you! This is what the entire democratic world must now focus on, strengthening their own defense forces, because the threat from totalitarian regimes (Russia, North Korea, Iran, China) has significantly increased. The complete betrayal of the U.S. and their exit from NATO cannot be ruled out either. However, this is not so important, because both NATO and the UN have shown themselves to be helpless organizations. Therefore, the most important thing is what I have already said: every democratic country must accelerate the strengthening of its own army.

✍ Bogdan Karasiov, Ukraine, February 21, 2025
(the original post was written by me in Ukrainian and translated into English with the help of ChatGPT, which I often use instead of Google Translate due to its better translation quality).