Fiona Hill

Putin's behaving like a rogue state, just to be very clear.

And this is what we've got with Kim Jong-un in North Korea.

We've also got India and Pakistan.

And we've got other states we're not supposed to talk about that we know have nuclear capacities and others that would like to have nuclear capacity.

And the whole question here is about also proliferation.

Getting back to that time when Ukraine had nuclear weapons, at least there on its territory in sort of Belarus and Kazakhstan, you've got to wonder, was it wise for them to give it up?

We were worried about, you know, kind of loose nukes, nuclear weapons, you know, kind of getting out of hand proliferation at the time.

We wanted fewer nuclear powers.

Russia wanted that too.

Now we're going to have more.

We've got more.

And what Putin is saying is, well, that was stupid of Ukraine to give up the nuclear weapons.

In fact, my colleagues and I, back in our report and back in the USSR, kind of suggest they shouldn't give them up.

And that's why we had the Budapest memorandum.

That's why the United States, the United Kingdom in particular...

have basically some responsibility and obligation going back to 1994 when they promised Ukraine that gave up the nuclear weapons, that territorial integrity and sovereignty would remain intact, some obligation to actually do something to step up.

If we step back from that, this is the thing that people are not talking about,

You know, what about nuclear proliferation?

If you're South Korea, Japan, you know, you're any other country that's kind of worrying about your neighbors.

And, you know, what might happen to you?