Topic: 2025 – No First Use Policies and Nuclear Disarmament
Country: Ukraine
Delegate Name: Tejasvi Annadurai
Disarmament and International Security Committee
No First Use Policies and Nuclear Disarmament
Ukraine
Tejasvi Annadurai
Forest Hills Northern
Since the beginning of the atomic age, nuclear weapons have personified both the pinnacle of destructive capability and the greatest threat to the survival of humanity. Since the dropping of nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the world has lived with a constant shadow of mutual destruction, thus promoting several decades of treaties and activism directed at obtaining nuclear disarmament. However, to this day, and notwithstanding efforts through arrangements such as the NPT and the New START Treaty, there remain over 12,000 nuclear warheads in stockpiles worldwide. At the same time, only a few states, notably China and India, retain formal “No First Use” policies, while others continue to retain the right to nuclear preemption. The resulting geopolitical instability, coupled with the modernization of nuclear arsenals, underscores the urgent need for verifiable disarmament and credible NFU commitments that can restore global trust and prevent escalation.
Ukraine holds a unique and morally significant position on this issue. Upon gaining independence in 1991, Ukraine inherited the world’s third-largest nuclear arsenal from the dissolved Soviet Union. In 1994, Ukraine made the historic decision to give up all nuclear weapons, acceding to the NPT as a non-nuclear-weapon state in return for security assurances provided through the Budapest Memorandum signed by the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Russian Federation. Those assurances were to protect Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity; however, subsequent violations of that memorandum have highlighted the insufficiency of non-binding guarantees and the danger of relying solely on good faith. Ukraine’s experience serves both as a cautionary and inspiring precedent, a proof of commitment to global disarmament, but also a warning that such disarmament should be matched by enforceable international mechanisms that protect non-nuclear states from coercion and aggression.
Ukraine urges the international community to follow a balanced and pragmatic path towards universal No First Use adoption and nuclear disarmament. Ukraine suggests the establishment, under the auspices of the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs and the International Atomic Energy Agency, of a United Nations No First Use Confidence and Verification Framework, aiming at transparency, inspections, and mutual accountability among the states adopting NFU pledges. Further, Ukraine supports phasing in de-alerting nuclear weapons in order to reduce the risks of accidental launches and promotes a Multilateral Disarmament Incentive Fund to provide financial and technical assistance to the states for safe dismantling, material conversion, and economic transition. Finally, Ukraine calls upon forming under the auspices of the United Nations Security Council a Security for Disarmament Mechanism that shall link verified disarmament actions to binding multilateral security guarantees. As a country that has voluntarily given up its nuclear arsenal for the sake of peace, Ukraine states once again that disarmament without security is not sustainable and that a future free of nuclear threats requires both moral will and enforceable international law.
Works Cited:
“Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zones” United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs. https://disarmament.unoda.org/en/our-work/weapons-mass-destruction/nuclear-weapons/nuclear-weapon-free-zones
“Nuclear Disarmament Ukraine” Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI). https://www.nti.org/analysis/articles/ukraine-nuclear-disarmament/
“New START Treaty Overview” U.S. Department of State. https://www.state.gov/new-start/
“Statement on the 30th Anniversary of the Budapest Memorandum” Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine. December 2024. https://mfa.gov.ua
“No First Use Policy Brief” Global Zero. https://www.globalzero.org
“Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons” United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs.https://disarmament.unoda.org/en/our-work/weapons-mass-destruction/nuclear-weapons/treaty-prohibition-nuclear-weapons
“Ukraine Country Profile” CIA World Factbook. Central Intelligence Agency. https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/ukraine/
