International Nuclear Safety Group the Kyshtym disaster, which occurred at Mayak, a Nuclear fuel reprocessing plant in the Soviet Union. Since then, there have been hundreds of nuclear accidents, some considered minor while others were horrendous, with one of the worst accidents being the Chernobyl disaster of April 26, 1986. Involving a nuclear power plant at Chernobyl, now in Ukraine, a combination of nuclear volatility and the disregard of several safety procedures caused an explosion of its fourth reactor, ending in the worldwide environmental and human catastrophe. Following the Chernobyl accident, the IAEA was forced to create a new branch of their organisation to
Nuclear weapons and Ukraine The study argues that the push for Ukrainian independence was with a view to make it a nonnuclear state. The United States would also not have made Ukraine an exception when it came to the denuclearization of other post-Soviet states such as Belarus and Kazakhstan. The deterrent value of the nuclear weapons in Ukraine was also questionable, as Ukraine would have had to spend 12 to 18 months to establish full operational control over the nuclear arsenal left by the Russians. The ICBMs also had a range of 5.000-10.000 km (initially targeting the United States), which meant that they could