 This was the first time in history that a country voluntarily gave up the use of strategic nuclear weapons, although the Republic of South Africa was dismantling its small tactical nuclear weapons program at about the same time.Ukraine has plentiful amounts of highly enriched uranium, which the United States wanted to buy from the Kharkiv Institute of Physics and Technology.Ukraine also has two uranium mining and processing factories, a heavy water plant and technology for determining the isotopic composition of fissionable materials.