But the Ukrainian government also recognized that it possessed a tremendous card to play in negotiations with both the Russian Federation and the Americans. Within a year the Ukrainian leadership agreed to the Lisbon Protocol, a pact between the United States, Russia and former Soviet states housing nuclear weapons. The protocol laid out that Ukraine, along with Belarus and Kazakhstan, would sign on to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty as a non-nuclear state as soon as possible.

It also put in place a framework under which Russia and the United States would offer economic incentives for the former states to dismantle their nuclear stockpiles and return them to Russian control. Over the next five years, Ukrainian officials followed through, delivering thousands of tactical and strategic nuclear weapons to Russian authorities.

Several times the Ukrainian government sought more compensation for specific items, but by the middle of 1996, American intelligence officials confirmed that all warheads and tactical weapons were out of the Ukraine.

Despite this disarmament success, officials continue to express concern over the huge reserve of trained nuclear technicians and scientists in Ukraine. They worry that Ukraine's struggling economy and few high tech industries may lead to significant unemployment among the bomb designers and builders. In order to keep their services from going to the highest bidder, the United States has entered into agreements with the Ukraine to both safeguard existing facilities as well as offer gainful employment to scientists and technicians.

Hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent through programs like the so-called Nunn-Lugar agreement to decommission sites as well as to use these technicians to help stabilize the country's civilian nuclear program, which includes the Chernobyl reactor that partially melted down in 1986.

-- Compiled by Lee Banville for the Online NewsHour