Thursday marks the end of more than half a century of nuclear restraint.
The New START Treaty, which was signed by Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev in 2010, is expiring. Under its terms, both the U.S. and Russia were limited to 1,550 deployed warheads and 800 delivery systems.
Now, for the first time since 1972, there are no limits on the two countries that possess nearly 90% of the world's nuclear weapons.
Analysts foresee Russia and the U.S. deploying hundreds of additional warheads within months, with no caps, inspections or verification.
As nuclear taboos erode, Russia is hitting Ukraine with nuclear-capable ballistic missiles, and Putin threatening use of the nukes themselves. The weapons once considered too terrible to mention are now a tool of coercion.
Scripps News got a rare sight last year when we descended into the deep bunker of a Soviet-era Ukrainian missile facility, decommissioned in the early 1990s when the country agreed to give up its 1,900 nuclear warheads in exchange for security guarantees.
The hollowness of those security promises that left silos like this one empty echoes into the current peace negotiations and proposals from Russia and the U.S.: Surrender land beyond what Russian President Vladimir Putin has already grabbed, and get peace and protection.
And Ukraine's past lesson in giving up its nukes could become the world's lesson, amid collapsing confidence in the international order.
RELATED NEWS | Russia rains missiles, drones on Ukraine ahead of key peace negotiations
