As Ukraine battles near-daily Russian bombardment, Kyiv must be rueing the fateful decisions made by its leadership in the 1990s, which agreed to voluntarily degrade its military and nuclear capabilities.
Ironically, it was none other than the US and Russia that encouraged Kyiv to transfer/destroy its nuclear bombs, and other critical military assets like ballistic and surface-to-air missiles, and strategic bombers.
As fate would have it, some of the same nuclear-capable bombers that Kyiv transferred to Russia are believed to have been used by Moscow to attack Ukraine.
As the US pressures Ukraine to accept a ceasefire on Russia’s terms, including crippling limits on Ukrainian military size and power, Kyiv would think a million times before any commitment, which could degrade its military.
On December 8, 1991, Boris Yeltsin – President of the Russian Federation in the Soviet Union, Leonid Kravchuk – President of Ukraine, and Stanislav Shushkevich – Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of Belarus, met at a hunting lodge in Belarus and signed an agreement declaring that the Soviet Union “as a subject of international law and a geopolitical reality” had ceased to exist and created the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) in its place.
Nearly two weeks later, on December 25, the Kremlin lowered the Soviet Sickle and Hammer flag for the last time, and the Soviet Union became history, fragmenting into 15 new independent states.
At that time, the Soviet Union (USSR) was one of the world’s two superpowers.
It had the world’s largest arsenal of nuclear bombs, thousands of nuclear delivery platforms, including launchers and strategic bombers, and Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs).
The 15 independent states did not divide these military assets orderly, and the country hosting the nuclear warheads and delivery platforms often became their de facto owner.
Ukraine, the second-most populous and economically powerful republic in the Soviet Union, inherited approximately 1900 strategic nuclear warheads, between 2,650 and 4,200 Soviet tactical nuclear weapons, 176 ICBMs (130 SS-19 and 46 SS-24) and associated launchers, nearly 600 nuclear-capable KH-55 cruise missiles, and approximately 102 strategic bombers: 23 Tu-95MS, 19 Tu-160, and more than 60 Tu-22M3.
This large nuclear arsenal would have made Ukraine the world’s third-largest nuclear power, after Russia and the US. Worryingly, Ukraine inherited not only nuclear warheads, but also delivery platforms, such as nuclear-capable missiles, launchers, and nuclear-capable strategic bombers.
The situation was a non-proliferation nightmare for the world, and the US and Russia, the long-time Cold War adversaries, soon found a common cause to come together and take away these new countries’ nuclear assets, in the process robbing them of their deterrence against external aggression.
However, the disarmament process forced Ukraine to transfer not only its nuclear assets but also its conventional military platforms, such as ICBMs, cruise missiles, and strategic bombers, assets that could have been crucial for Kyiv in defending its territory from Russian aggression.
On December 5, 1994, leaders of the US, the UK, and the Russian Federation met in Budapest, Hungary, and signed the Budapest Memorandum, under which the three countries gave security assurances to Ukraine in return for its accession to the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) as a non-nuclear-weapons state.
Under the agreement, Ukraine agreed to transfer its nuclear warheads to Russia.
Further, under the 1992 Lisbon Protocol to the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) and the US-funded Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) program (1993), Ukraine committed to dismantling all strategic nuclear delivery systems by December 5, 2001. This deadline was later extended to 2006.
Ever since the war in Ukraine started in February 2022, Russia has routinely used its strategic bombers to launch missiles at Ukraine.
In 1991, Ukraine inherited approximately 102 strategic bombers: 25 Tu-95MS, 19 Tu-160, and more than 60 Tu-22M3.
According to the Eurasian security think tank Jamestown Foundation, when the Soviet Union collapsed, Ukraine hosted two of its most important strategic air bases.
At Uzin, 70 kilometers south of Kyiv, the Soviets stationed 25 Tu-95MS turboprop nuclear missile carriers. At Pryluky, 130 kilometers east of the capital, the Soviet Union stationed its only operational unit of 19 new, supersonic Tu-160 Blackjack bombers.
In February 1992, the unit at Uzin declared allegiance to Ukraine. In May 1992, just one week after Russia announced it was forming its own national armed forces, Ukraine announced it was taking command of all long-range aviation units on its territory. This included the Tu-160 base at Pryluky.
The Tu-160s were particularly lethal. It was designed to match the American B-1B bomber, but was significantly larger and faster.
It remains the largest combat aircraft in the world; it could carry 45,000 kg of ordnance across its two internal bays, or up to twelve nuclear-armed cruise missiles, and fly 14,000 km without refueling. Its supersonic speed of 2,300 km/h and variable-sweep wings made it a standout in aviation history.
However, under the START-1 treaty and CTR agreement, Ukraine agreed to dismantle all of these strategic bombers.
Thus began the consensual elimination of Ukraine’s strategic aviation.
Under the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction program, the United States funded the destruction of some strategic bombers and missiles, including the extraction of valuable metals.
However, some bombers were not destroyed.
At the time, the newly independent Ukraine was struggling with debt. For decades, as part of the Soviet Union, Ukraine got access to heavily subsidized fuel and gas. When the Soviet Union dissolved abruptly in 1991, Moscow suddenly cut off this subsidized gas.
Struggling with mounting debt, Ukraine agreed to transfer eight Tu-160 and three Tu-95MS bombers to Moscow in exchange for US$285 million in debt relief. This decision remains controversial, as the estimated value of a single Tu-160 was between US$250 and US$300 million.
Between 1999 and 2000, Kyiv transferred Tu-95s and Tu-160s as partial payments on natural-gas debts, along with 575 Kh-55 missiles.
This fateful decision not only degraded Ukraine’s air power and deterrence, but it also multiplied Russia’s air power, creating a military imbalance that Moscow is exploiting in the current war.
In 2024, an investigation by Ukrainian investigative news site Skhemy found that six of the eight Tu-160 bombers transferred to Russia were still active in military operations against Ukraine.
The remaining strategic bombers in Ukraine were dismantled, often with technical and financial assistance from the US.
In March 2007, the US State Department reported that Ukraine had dismantled 57 Tu-22 bombers, 27 Tu-95s, six Tu-142s, 11 Tu-160s, for bomber trainers, 346 Kh-22 ASMs, and 483 Kh-ALCMs (air-launched cruise missiles).
While these platforms were nuclear-capable and theoretically could have been used to launch nukes, they also had conventional military capabilities.
By dismantling and transferring these military assets to Russia, Kyiv delivered a double blow to itself – degrading its own capabilities while multiplying its adversary’s.
In the annals of military history, few decisions have proven as fateful – or as irreversible.
The post The Bombers U.S. Paid to Scrap Weakened Ukraine, Helped Russia. Why Did Kyiv Clip Its Own Wings? appeared first on EURASIAN TIMES.
Ukrainian forces have liberated more territory since the beginning of the fall than Russian troops have captured during the same period. This trend has persisted throughout 2026, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his 18 October address. He also reported that Dobropillia, Kostiantynivka, and five other settlements remain under Ukrainian control.
Russia systematically exaggerates its battlefield gains. A recent briefing by Valery Gerasimov, chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, in which he claimed that Russian forces had captured 92 settlements since the beginning of September, as well as Kostiantynivka and Dobropillia, and advanced to within 5 kilometers of Zaporizhzhia, was based on “outright lies, manipulation, and exaggerations,” Ukrainian General Staff spokesperson Andrii Kovaliov said.
Ukraine also continues to defend areas near Kramatorsk, Zelenskyy said. He dismissed Russian claims about Zaporizhzhia.
“We are destroying Russians 20 kilometers from Zaporizhzhia, not five, as someone in Russia is fantasizing to Putin,” Zelenskyy said.
Ukrainian forces continue to hold back Russian assaults and destroy groups of occupying troops attempting to infiltrate Dobropillia, the president said. The Defense Forces are also defending positions elsewhere in Donetsk Oblast and in Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia oblasts.
Russia seeks to advance on the Zaporizhzhia axis to bring the regional capital within range of its tube artillery, hold forward positions, and protect rear areas from Ukrainian strikes, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said on 18 October.
Maksym Kravchuk, spokesperson for Ukraine's Southern Group of Forces, refuted Gerasimov’s claims that Russian forces had captured Malokaterynivka, located south of Zaporizhzhia, stressing that the settlement remains under Ukrainian control, the Center for Countering Disinformation said on 18 October. Ukrainian troops recorded a video directly from Malokaterynivka to confirm this.
As of 18 October, Russian forces had advanced or infiltrated to within 24 kilometers of Zaporizhzhia, ISW said.
Dobropillia is now a fortress anchoring Ukrainian positions along the highway leading northeast toward Kramatorsk. Russia first tried to take Dobropillia in August 2025 and is now trying again.
Russia is redeploying reinforcements to the Dobropillia axis and continues to send assault infantry through the village of Nove Shakhove despite heavy losses. Russian command will likely try to encircle or at least envelop Dobropillia and cut off Ukrainian supply routes from the direction of Bilozerske, Ukrainian military analyst Kostiantyn Mashovets wrote on 9 October.
Mashovets sees the push as the southern flank of a Russian effort to envelop the whole Sloviansk–Kramatorsk urban area.
Dobropillia remains under Ukrainian control, Zelenskyy said. On 18 October, footage located by analysts showed a Russian soldier hoisting a flag in the town's southeast after an infiltration, yet ISW has found no sign that Russian troops have dug in there.
Ukrainian troops in and around Kostiantynivka are stopping Russia from locking in its gains in the city or pushing on toward Druzhkivka and Kramatorsk, ISW said on 17 October.
Russian officials claimed that capturing Kostiantynivka was an important step toward establishing control over the Sloviansk–Druzhkivka–Kramatorsk urban agglomeration and the entire Donetsk Oblast, ISW said in August. The Kremlin also claimed that Russian forces had captured the city as early as 5 July, the institute added.
A Russian military blogger claimed that Russian forces had full control over Kostiantynivka, but ISW found no evidence to support this claim, the institute said in its 16 October assessment. Russian troops had only infiltrated parts of southern and central Kostiantynivka without consolidating positions, and there was no evidence of their presence in its northern part, ISW added.
The world’s first supersonic passenger airliner—the Soviet Tu-144—may have become history after a brief but troubled stint that ended in commercial failure. However, some Russian volunteers refuse to let it vanish into oblivion and are reportedly advancing efforts to restore the aircraft for static display.
At the height of the Cold War, the Tu-144 “Concordski” was seen as an answer to the Anglo-French supersonic aircraft, Concorde.
The Russian airliner beat the Concorde in the skies twice: first with its maiden flight on December 31, 1968, two months before Concorde, and second with its first supersonic flight in June 1969, about four months before Concorde.
To preserve this legacy, a group of Russian volunteers has spent years coaxing life back into a Tu-144 airframe on the shared grounds of the Gromov Flight Research Institute and Zhukovsky Airport.
Interestingly, though, these volunteers are neither engineers from Russia’s state design bureau nor museum-paid technicians, but enthusiasts with limited resources aiming to restore a retired Tupolev Tu-144D.
The aircraft, registered CCCP-77115, is parked on the shared grounds of the Gromov Flight Research Institute and Zhukovsky Airport outside Moscow. It served as a static exhibit at the MAKS air show for several years, but its fate remains unclear, as the air show has been suspended since 2021 due to the war in Ukraine.
Passionate volunteers have carried out extensive external and internal restoration work on the aircraft. One volunteer involved, Pavel Efter, has posted videos of the work on both airplanes on his YouTube channel, “Restorer144,” since 2023.
In the videos, volunteers can be seen turning on the electrical power supply and batteries, testing the fuel gauge, fuel pump, and fuel pressure indicator in the cockpit, checking the landing gear lights and inflating the tires, testing the cabin lighting, repairing the analog navigation system, examining the electrical schematics, cleaning the outside of the aircraft, inspecting the SSP-2A fire detection system and smoke sensors, raising and lowering the nose, testing the retractable canards, testing the APU’s bay doors beneath the aircraft, and actually installing the TA-6A Auxiliary Power Unit (APU).
In Instagram comments, Efter told enthusiasts and followers that the Tu-144D is being refurbished only for static exhibition and will not return to flight.
Notably, the TA-6A and other mechanical and electrical modifications to the Tu-144D (as seen in the video above) have recently been made, sparking rumors that the volunteers may be preparing the aircraft for another static exhibition at MAKS, probably in 2027.
Nonetheless, the volunteers have been working on restoring the aircraft for several months. In July 2026, media reports noted that the volunteers had already started the electrical system and connected a ground power source, adding that even the well-known nose-lowering mechanism had become operational.
Another Russian state-funded news website, Mir24, provided more details on the volunteers. “There is a problem with such glass fuses now. They aren’t used anywhere; you can’t always find them in old stock. We throw out a cry on the Internet: who has something, who can help with what,” Sergey Chechetkin told the publication at the time. Sergey is a former aviation engineer who devotes all his free time to the Tu-144.
The report also noted that volunteers have completely recreated the plane’s cabin. Volunteers collected the missing devices from across the country and began restoring the aircraft by tidying the service panels and lamps and installing the original chairs. Initially, the 77115 board wasn’t a passenger deck; it served as an experimental testbed. “We find it in different places. Old blocks are transmitted at the bases; you can find something here. Here we are installing the blocks on the mounts,” a volunteer named Alexey told Mir24.
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The project carries no grand political statement. The volunteers do not frame their work as resistance or protest. Instead, they speak of history. “This is not just a museum exhibit, but a legend that we should be proud of. You can still learn a lot from it; many developments aren’t available on other planes yet. It is still ahead of its time,” said Alexey Amelushkin, an engineer at the training and methodological center of PJSC Tupolev, earlier.
Needless to say, returning this legendary airframe to flight is widely regarded as impractical, especially since Kolesov RD-36-51 engines are long out of production, spare parts are scarce, and certification requirements would be formidable.
Therefore, Efter and his colleagues are only restoring the aircraft’s ability to present itself: nose down in the classic pose, canards extended, cabin lights on, systems powered by its own APU.
The Tupolev Tu-144 was the world’s first supersonic passenger airliner.
Designed by the Tupolev Design Bureau, the aircraft was rushed into development after the then-Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev, demanded a supersonic transport that would fly before its Western counterpart.
The prototype made its maiden flight on 31 December 1968 near Moscow, beating Concorde into the air by more than two months. Subsequently, the aircraft went supersonic for the first time in June 1969 and became the first commercial aircraft to reach Mach 2 in May 1970.
The Tu-144 was built to be larger and faster than Concorde, and featured a distinctive double-delta wing and a drooping nose for better landing visibility. Later models also added retractable canards to improve low-speed handling.
However, Western experts and officials claimed the Soviets stole the Concorde plans, which may have helped them build the Tupolev Tu-144 before the Concorde.
These claims reportedly stemmed (at least in part) from the uncanny design similarities between the world’s first two supersonic passenger aircraft.
Despite its early successes over the Concorde, the airplane faced technical issues.
For example, Tu-144’s early Kuznetsov NK-144 engines required constant afterburner use to sustain supersonic cruise, making it extremely noisy, fuel-thirsty, and shorter-range than Concorde, which could supercruise without afterburners. Moreover, reliability problems emerged during testing and maintenance, and the cabin was very noisy and vibrated a lot.
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On June 3, 1973, during a demonstration flight at the Paris Air Show, a production Tu-144 broke apart in midair and crashed into the French village of Goussainville, killing all six crew members along with eight additional people on the ground.
Although the most widely accepted explanation is that the crew overstressed the airframe during fast maneuvers, the precise cause of this disaster remains uncertain.
The Tu-144 entered limited commercial service with Aeroflot in 1975, initially carrying mail and cargo on the Moscow–Almaty route, followed by passenger flights in Nov 1977.
However, the aircraft flew only about 55 passenger services before a second major incident. In May 1978, a fuel-line rupture and fire during a test flight claimed the lives of two crew members and formally ended passenger operations.
After this debacle, the aircraft continued brief cargo and experimental work even as its rival program—the Concorde—struggled with its own set of issues.
Both programs were eventually canceled because of poor safety records and concerns about economic viability. However, Concorde was far more successful than the Tu-144 and wasn’t discontinued until 2003.
The Soviet Union, for its part, built only 16 airframes before operations ceased in 1983. A few surviving examples later trained pilots for the Soviet Buran space shuttle, and one modified aircraft served as a flying laboratory in a joint NASA–Russian research program from 1996 to 1999, conducting its final flights in support of future supersonic transport studies, as earlier explained in detail by the EurAsian Times.
Though neither the Tu-144 nor the Concorde survived, both programs have inspired people worldwide to make supersonic commercial travel a reality. Earlier this year, United Aircraft Corporation (UAC) CEO Vadim Badekha confirmed that the Zhukovsky National Research Center is working on a supersonic airliner prototype. He said the effort had moved beyond paper studies into “hardware,” with UAC providing active support, and expressed confidence that the center would complete the work.
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“Yes, such work is underway at the Zhukovsky Research Center, and we are actively assisting. The work is no longer confined to paper – it is already being carried out in hardware. A prototype of such an aircraft is under development, and we believe the Zhukovsky Research Center will successfully complete this work,” he told TASS.
Meanwhile, NASA is advancing work on the X-59, an experimental aircraft in the agency’s Quiet Supersonic Technology (Quesst) program that could go supersonic without generating a sonic boom or a loud, thunder-like sound when it exceeds the speed of sound. In addition, China is developing a supersonic passenger aircraft that could make its maiden flight by 2027. Last year, reports noted that the Chinese commercial aerospace company leading the project conducted the first test flight of a detonation ramjet engine.
As for the Tu-144, this aircraft is remembered as a bold but ultimately unsuccessful engineering achievement. It is, perhaps, for this reason that the volunteers outside the state machinery of Russia are doing everything they can to ensure that the supersonic airliner does not get lost in pages of history.
The post Russia’s ‘Concorde’ is Back: World’s 1st Supersonic Passenger Airliner Lives On as Volunteers Fix Tu-144 appeared first on EURASIAN TIMES.
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