Commentators are divided over whether Russia would still have launched military aggression against Ukraine in 2014, including the illegal annexation of Crimea, and then the full-blown attack, if kyiv had retained the arsenal.

But the documents, which have been published at the National Archives in Kew, London, show how the UK knew behind the scenes that the region was a tinderbox.

Another cable warns: ‘The most dangerous flash point is Russia/Ukraine.

“There are too many potential points of conflict and in some of them (for example, the Black Sea Fleet) there will be little alternative but to hope that the parties manage to resolve something.”

The dispatch continues: “The reluctance to engage in a can of worms is understandable, but if we do not seek effective international engagement now, we may find it too late when things turn ugly.”

None of the documents are signed with a name, but the distribution list shows they were distributed within the UK government, including the Ministry of Defense and the Cabinet Office.

Another telegram marked “confidential” states that “we have recently heard comments from some in Russia indicating that the Russian Federation may be considering changes to its publicly stated “no first use” policy.”

The report, which was also written anonymously, warns that “now is not the right time” for the discussion to become public, as some of the country’s neighbors could view the proposals as “threatening.”

The dispatch was filed in May 1993. By November of that year, Russia had formally abandoned the no-first-use policy that Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev had adopted 11 years earlier.

Another document on nuclear weapons safety in Ukraine details how Georgiy Mamedov, then Russian deputy foreign minister, suggested over lunch that Greenpeace should conduct inspections.

The letter, sent from Moscow, says: “I questioned Mamedov’s idea that Greenpeace would be a suitable body to carry out security inspections: they lacked experience and, given their known bias against nuclear weapons, would be forced to say that They weren’t safe.” .

“Wouldn’t it be better if they were inspected by some impartial experts, like the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency)?”

The message to authorized government recipients in London, sent in November ’93, is signed ‘SPECAN 0001’.

Another section says that Mamedov had warned that “the weapons would become too dangerous to move within 7 or 8 months.”

The author writes: ‘This may still be nothing more than scaremongering on the part of the Russians. But the Ukrainian ambassador in Moscow, during a press conference about Kozyrev’s (Russian minister) visit to Ukraine, did not directly deny that weapons were becoming unsafe: he stated instead that Russia had unsafe weapons and that Ukraine would keep the agreement international. community informed about the status of “their” weapons.’

Ukraine agreed to trade the inherited weapons when it signed the memorandum along with the United States, the United Kingdom and Russia.

The three powers provided security guarantees to kyiv and pledged to “respect the independence and sovereignty of Ukraine.”

In a briefing paper published in 2014, researcher Mariana Budjeryn, an expert on Soviet nuclear issues, wrote: “The perceptions of a Russian threat to Ukraine’s territorial integrity that underpinned its demands for security guarantees in the early 1990s have demonstrated be justified.

“Bereft of allies and weakened by perennial misrule that led to an internal political crisis, Ukraine became an easy target for Mr. Putin.

‘The Budapest Memorandum failed to deter Russian aggression because it imposed no immediate costs for its violation.

“The political guarantees it provided were based on the goodwill and self-control of the guarantors, an agreement that can work between allies but not between potential adversaries.”