Kuchma's main miscalculation: the reforms that did not happen, and the war that Ukraine won

In 2000, former president Leonid Kuchma declared that Ukraine would never be a nuclear power and did not plan to restore the nuclear potential inherited from the USSR. He emphasized that Kyiv has fully fulfilled its international obligations under the Budapest Memorandum and will focus exclusively on the development of peaceful nuclear energy under the control of the IAEA.

According to Kuchma, nuclear status "is not the path for Ukraine", and security guarantees should be provided by international agreements and partnerships. After a quarter of a century, Focus tells which Kuchma's decisions became strategic mistakes and how they affected the security of Ukraine today. Leonid Kuchma became the head of Ukraine in July 1994 — in the midst of economic collapse, hyperinflation, and political instability.

The third year of independence, and the state did not yet have clear borders with Russia, the Black Sea Fleet remained a bone of contention, and the nuclear legacy of the USSR demanded a solution. Kuchma, the former director of Pivdenmash, came with a reputation as a pragmatist. His foreign policy was an attempt to bring the country out of isolation without severing economic ties with Moscow. The first steps are the Budapest Memorandum and nuclear disarmament.

Ukraine inherited the third largest nuclear arsenal in the world, but did not have the funds to maintain it. Kravchuk started this process, and everything was completed during Kuchma's first term. By 1996, all warheads were exported to the Russian Federation. The West promised security guarantees. Then it looked logical: the era of the "end of history", cooperation, not confrontation. In parallel, European integration took place. In 1994, Ukraine signed the Partnership Agreement with the EU.

In 1998, the country joined the Council of Europe. The 1997 Charter on the Special Partnership between Ukraine and NATO opened the door to exercises and peacekeeping missions. All international politics during Kuchma's presidency was called multi-vector.

He constantly maneuvered between the USA, the EU and Russia: on the one hand, the creation of the association of post-Soviet countries GUAM as an alternative to Russian influence in the region, on the other hand, the so-called "Treaty on friendship, cooperation and partnership between Ukraine and the Russian Federation", which regulated the borders and the fleet. The conflict over Tuzla Island in 2003 was the culmination of the worsening of relations with the Russian Federation.

Russia then began building a dam to the island in an attempt to annex the disputed territory. Kuchma personally arrived on the scene, and Ukraine sent troops. The crisis then ended with a compromise and a halt to construction. This became the first serious challenge to Putin. But external successes contrasted with internal stagnation. Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary reformed and joined the EU and NATO, but Ukraine did not. Oligarchization, corruption, and slow reforms hampered the movement.

Had the pace been faster, the story might have turned out differently. Kuchma's foreign policy gave time and foundation. But without internal modernization, this foundation remained vulnerable. A lesson that Ukraine is still learning. Political technologist Oleh Posternak assessed Leonid Kuchma's presidency as a period when foreign policy achievements significantly outweighed internal miscalculations.

According to him, the second half of the 1990s — the beginning of the 2000s was dictated by its own opportunities, which Ukraine used to assert itself as a sovereign and subject state. Among the key achievements, Posternak names the launch of a course on European integration, joining the Council of Europe, signing the Charter on a special partnership with NATO, establishing bilateral cooperation with all major powers.

The political scientist considers the normalization of relations with the Russian Federation to be particularly important — from the Great Treaty of 1997 to the conflict near Tuzla Island in 2003. Then Ukraine confidently made the newly elected President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin, understand the limits of its statehood.

Posternak also emphasizes that the disarmament was explained by the difficult socio-economic condition of the country, which could not provide proper maintenance and support of the existing weapons. The sale of weapons significantly replenished the budget, although this aspect requires a separate analysis. "The rejection of nuclear weapons, recorded in the Budapest memorandum, is not a mistake of Kuchma.

The foundations of this decision were laid by Leonid Kravchuk, and Kuchma, as the newly elected president, continued the course to strengthen foreign policy positions. At that time, there was a general belief in the dawn of an era of stable international relations and interstate understanding in the post-Soviet space. It was almost impossible to predict the current level of the Russian-Ukrainian war," the expert notes.

Posternak calls the insufficient pace of domestic political reforms the main mistake of Kuchma. Unlike Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania, which became members of the European Union in the early 2000s, Ukraine did not intensify European integration processes. If internal changes took place faster, the probability of joining the EU and trying to join NATO would be higher. This could make Putin think twice before launching a full-scale war.

At the same time, the expert admits that even membership in NATO would hardly stop Putin in his aggressive attitude towards Ukraine. "He could take a risk and go against an Alliance country, preparing a more serious continental conflict," the expert concluded. Thus, Kuchma's foreign policy laid the foundation for sovereignty, but the lack of internal transformations left Ukraine vulnerable to external threats.

Today, analyzing that period, society must realize that without rapid reforms, no external guarantees will ensure complete security. Only a combination of external activity with internal modernization could change the trajectory of the country's development. Kuchma, despite all his achievements, could not ensure this balance. And it became a lesson for the next generations of leaders.

Political scientist Ruslan Klyuchnyk reminds us that after the voluntary relinquishment of the world's third nuclear arsenal, the topic of returning to the atomic bomb is breaking through again in the discussion — against the background of Russian aggression and the failure of the guarantees of the Budapest Memorandum. Ukraine inherited not only Soviet warheads, but also a powerful school of nuclear physics, rocket engineering and materials science.

The Kharkiv Institute of Physics and Technology, Kyiv and Dnipro enterprises still have specialists capable of restoring the closed cycle of production — from uranium enrichment to carriers. The financial factor is also not fatal: during the years of full-scale war, the state spent hundreds of billions of dollars on defense, launched large-scale production of drones and shells, and in 2024, more than 50% of the state budget went to the security sector.

According to the logic of supporters of the nuclear program, the resources for the "atom" could be found in the same way. However, the main barrier is not technology or money, but geopolitics. An attempt to return to nuclear status would mean international isolation, sanctions and the risk of a pre-emptive strike by the Russian Federation. That is why, according to experts, despite the existing potential, the nuclear path for Ukraine remains rather theoretical than real.