The Project on Managing the Atom (MTA) invites you to attend a discussion of MTA Senior Research Associate Mariana Budjeryn’s book: Inheriting the Bomb: The Collapse of the USSR and the Nuclear Disarmament of Ukraine (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2023). Matthew Bunn will provide introductory remarks and Steve Miller will serve as a discussant during the session. For those attending in-person, light breakfast and refreshments will be served at 10:30am. The talk and webinar will begin at 11:00am EDT.

While this event is on the record, the event organizers prohibit any attendees, including journalists, from audio/visual recording or distributing parts or all of the event program without prior written authorization. 

Project on Managing the Atom (MTA) hosts a timely discussion focused on the nuclear implications of the evolving conflict in Ukraine. Our panelists will discuss the Budapest Memorandum, security of Ukrainian nuclear facilities, and the risks of nuclear escalation.

For members of the public (HUID and non-HUID holders), please register for the Zoom webinar event here. You will be able to watch the event live through Zoom.

For those who wish to attend in-person (HUID holders only), please register for a seat in the conference room here. Seating is limited.

While this virtual event is on the record, the event organizers prohibit any attendees, including journalists, from audio/visual recording or distributing parts or all of the event program without prior written authorization. 

A Project on Managing the Atom (MTA) seminar with Mariana Budjeryn, Research Associate with MTA, and Amb. Steven Pifer, William J. Perry Fellow, CISAC, Stanford University, and former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine.

A Project on Managing the Atom (MTA) seminar with Mariana Budjeryn, Research Fellow with MTA and the International Security Program.

Speaker: Mariana Budjeryn, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, International Security Program/Project on Managing the Atom

The disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the world's largest nuclear arsenal of some 29,000 nuclear weapons, under the sovereign power of four new states: the Russian Federation, Belarus, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan. While Russia succeeded the Soviet Union as a recognized nuclear power, the status of nuclear weapons in the three non-Russian states was more ambiguous. Whose weapons were they, what claims could these new states convincingly and legitimately make in relation to the nuclear weapons on their territory, and who would carry out Soviet Union’s arms control obligations under START I and NPT? The presentation explores how the deliberations and decisions made during and immediately after the Soviet collapse framed much of the ensuring negotiations over the fate of Soviet nuclear legacy, leading, in the end, to the denuclearization of Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan. 

There is a lingering disagreement among scholars on how the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) affects nonproliferation and disarmament outcomes, in particular the political motivations of states to acquire or renounce nuclear weapons. Drawing on constructivist scholarship, this research project conceptualizes a range of normative mechanisms through which international norms and regimes could affect domestic political deliberations and proceeds to examine them in the cases of nuclear disarmament of Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine.

Please join us! Coffee and tea provided. Everyone is welcome, but admittance will be on a first come–first served basis.