IIRC from something I read years ago but even if Ukraine didn’t give up their warheads they wouldn’t have been able to use them cause the C&C for them was based in Russia, sounds like a technical challenge they could have eventually overcome, anyone know what I’m on about?
Yup. Both sides of the cold war developed “permissive action links” that allowed forward deployment of nuclear warheads on foreign soil (and to prevent rogue generals who could leverage nuclear weapons for political power domestically). These are what “nuclear codes” refer to, and famously were set to 0000 0000 for the first few years in the US due to fears the codes couldn’t be dispersed in time of nuclear war.
Ukraine’s warheads were essentially inert, but any detected attempt to break the C&C would’ve probably prompted an invasion of a scale much larger than the one we’re witnessing now, so it made sense for them to transfer the nukes back to Russia.
Remember the fears from 90’s that some of the warheads stationed in Ukraine might have been missing? Turned out, even if they sold them to some terrorists like political thriller writers suggested, it would still be safer for the world than leaving them in Ukrainian hands.
