I been hearing for a while a "what if" about Ukraine's post-soviet nuclear weapons that it gave up and how much of an edge that would be during the crisis with Russia.
Thing is, being realistic, did they have the option at all? or they were "softly coerced" to give them up to "avoid future problems"? if you catch my drift.
Also I been hearing what a wasted opportunity post-soviet Ukraine was and how people expected they would eventually join the EU, but did the EU did anything at all to integrate Ukraine? to influence its politics more towards them and away from Russia? or they just waited for that to happen out of thin air?
Ukraine had no desire to hold onto one of the world's largest nuclear arsenals. Not only would it be expensive, but at the time Russia and Ukraine had fairly good relations, there were, even then, issues surrounding the break up of the Black Sea Fleet and basing rights in Sebastopol. However, most people were fairly sure that nuclear war was out of the question, which I think is an assessment most people still hold to.
The post Soviet Ukrainian government generally was satisfied that Russia would hold to its promises to maintain Ukraine's territorial integrity. I think, at the time, considering the close economic and political relationships between the two countries most people imagined that it was not really ever going to come up that Ukraine's territorial integrity would be challenged by any state, and if it did come it would probably be from the West rather than east, i.e Hungary or Romania.
Another important, if not the most important factor was American pressure. The U.S figured that the less nuclear armed nations the better. The Clinton administration made it a priority to disarm Belarus, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan since none of these states really wanted the weapons to begin with it was just a matter of time and the terms involved. In Ukraine's case corruption and poor economic policies created a large depression. The U.S made receiving aid contingent on nuclear disarmament. The Ukrainian government wasn't planning on using the weapons and didn't want to pay for their maintenance (which I think was the main concern at the time) so it seemed a win-win once the powers guaranteed Ukraine's territorial integrity.
Even if U.S aid wasn't a factor, it seems that the weapons were just a drain of money and resources. Why bother? Perhaps a more forward thinking government would have created a more stable economy making retaining the weapons more feasible. However, it doesn't seem until the orange revolution, that Ukraine or Russia were on any sort of collision course. Internally there were issues in both nations, sure, but nothing that nukes would improve.
Orest Subtleny's History of Ukraine* is my source for the 90s and early 2000s, for modern Ukrainian politics I've been reading the news since then and really don't have a specific source I can point to.
Edit:
*Orest Subtleny's History of Ukraine is a must read on Ukrainian History, the most recent edition includes up to and including the Orange Revolution.