Ukraine couldn't use or maintain those nuclear weapons.
They had no control over their actual use. So why would Ukraine feel bad about giving them up? It was a huge benefit to get rid of them given the risks and costs associated.
They absolutely could not afford to maintain them circa 1991-2021. Not even remotely close.
Giving them up was the only thing that made any sense given their extremely low real value. If Ukraine made a mistake, it was in what they got in return for those non-functional weapons. They didn't negotiate very well.
Surely they could afford maintaining a dozen of them.
> They had no control over their actual use
Assuming they could not bypass the protection, they could still extract the radioactive material and create their own designs.
A non sequitur with no justification. If you are being attacked with drones, and you don’t have any, you are definitely going to lose that war.
This is like how people say nobody wins a nuclear war. Ask Ukraine how they feel about the decision to give up their nukes is going.