That’s my understanding. Furthermore, they had the nuclear weapons of the soviet union. Even if they could maintain them at the time, without much of the infrastructure that the soviet Union had, I think legally they were Moscow’s. Moscow held the metaphorical button, if not the physical one. Similar to US nuclear weapons in Germany aren’t controlled by Berlin.

That being said, I think this whole war has lead to a situation where nuclear armament is very appealing, not just to Kyiv but to many of the similar states looking on. It is again, for world peace we need less nukes in the world, for Ukraine’s sovereign safety, they need (more) nukes.

Wikipedia says Gen Z is born from mid to late 90s, which makes me a Gen Z’er. I use adblocker and try combat enshittification a few ways, including contributing to the commons. My day job is being a firmware developer for an opensource company. I’d say I’m tech savvy.

I think there are quite a lot of people like me, it is just that there are more people using technology at younger ages, effectively diluting the pool of Gen Z’ers you are encountering both online and in person.