Under the Nunn-Lugar Act, initiated by Indiana Republican Sen. Dick Lugar and Democratic Georgia Sen. Sam Nunn, Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons. Former senator and Indiana governor Evan Bayh says the two senators and the United States Congress were doing the right thing at the time, even though Ukraine could use the leverage of having nukes.

“There were thousands and thousands of nukes in some of those countries: Ukraine, Kazakhstan, other places besides Russia, and the fear was there that the greatest danger to humanity was that they wouldn’t be controlled and they would fall into the wrong hands,” said Bayh, in an interview with DLC Media in Terre Haute.

Bayh said he believes Nunn and Lugar did great work and points out the Russians, at that point, thought so, too.

“We weren’t going to eliminate nukes weapons. But, to control them, protect them and make sure they didn’t get into the wrong hands.”

Bayh said the work stands the test of time, even if it seems like Ukraine could stand to have those means in their arsenal.

“Certainly if you’re the Ukrainians today, you’re thinking, wow was that a mistake to give up our nuclear weapons because Putin wouldn’t be invading if we still had them. I’m sure they’re thinking the same thing in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Kim Jung Un in North Korea,” he said.

Bayh said one of the byproducts of Ukraine having given up their nukes is regimes like North Korea watching and thinking they may be threatened, and should never give up their nuclear weapons.

“Dick was right. Sam was right. It was the right thing to do. It sis protect the world. But, one of the lessons these rogue regimes are taking away is they probably don’t want to participate in anything like that.”

Bayh said some regimes might actually look at the situation and decide they want to acquire nuclear weapons, speeding up proliferation.

“It’s the fault of Vladimir Putin. He’s invading this country without any justification whatsoever and who could have anticipated that?”