Inheriting the Bomb | Mieroszewski Centre

It examines one of the most consequential moments of the late twentieth century: the collapse of the Soviet Union and the nuclear legacy that remained on the territory of four newly independent states—Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan.

Ukraine inherited the world’s third-largest nuclear arsenal. Yet within just a few years, it chose to relinquish it entirely. Drawing on extensive archival research and interviews with key participants in the negotiations, Budjeryn reconstructs the complex process that led to this decision. She reveals a dense web of diplomatic pressure, political calculations, and internal debates that accompanied the birth of Ukrainian statehood.

A central theme of the book is the role of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), which became a cornerstone of the post–Cold War international security architecture. In this context, Budjeryn closely examines the 1994 Budapest Memorandum—often described as a security guarantee for Ukraine. She demonstrates that the document was primarily a political assurance rather than a binding defense treaty equipped with enforcement mechanisms.

The book challenges the simplified narrative that Ukraine “voluntarily gave up” its nuclear weapons and that denuclearization represented an unequivocal success for the West. In Budjeryn’s analysis, the process was multidimensional—shaped by great-power pressure, hopes for economic stability and international recognition, as well as the limited alternatives available to a newly independent state. A comparative look at the paths taken by Belarus and Kazakhstan further deepens the analysis.

„Inheriting the Bomb” is not a journalistic reaction to current events but the result of years of research into post-Soviet nuclear history and the global non-proliferation regime. It raises fundamental questions about the gap between formal commitments and the political will to bear the costs of enforcing them. The book shows how decisions considered rational and stabilizing in the 1990s helped construct a security order whose structural weaknesses became visible only decades later.

Mariana Budjeryn is a scholar of nuclear security and international politics. She serves as Senior Research Associate with the Managing the Atom Project at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard Kennedy School. Her research focuses on nonproliferation, arms control, nuclear crises, and post-Soviet nuclear history. Her analyses have appeared in Foreign Affairs, The Washington Post, and the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, among others. She currently conducts research on nuclear safety and security risks facing civilian nuclear facilities in armed conflict.