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Russia's invasion of Ukraine hasn't just threatened to redraw the map of Europe.

It has transformed the global security landscape.

The ripple effects have been felt way beyond the continent,

reigniting fears not felt since the Cold War of a new nuclear arms race.

Ukraine always comes up as an example for Iranian media

when they're talking about the benefit of a nuclear program

around the time

of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Iran hadn't fully begun secretly aiding Russia.

And there was a lot of sympathetic reactions from newspapers in terms of Ukraine as a nation

that was having its sovereignty violated. And the reason Ukraine was being invaded

was that given up its own nuclear capacity.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991,

independent Ukraine inherited the third largest nuclear arsenal in the world.

The presidents of the Russian Federation, Ukraine, and the United States of America,

and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom will now sign the memorandum of security

assurances for Ukraine.

The country gave up its nuclear arms in exchange for international security guarantees to protect it from an attack, known as the Budapest Memorandum, but it ultimately failed to protect Ukraine.

For Iranian media outlets, it's an example of a sovereign nation that basically expose itself to attack

by giving up its own nuclear deterrent in exchange for what came to be meaningless international

guarantees for its safety and security. In this episode of the global jigsaw, we take stock of

the nuclear narratives in the Middle East. We go back to the beginnings of nuclear ambitions in

...