30 years of the Budapest Memorandum (video)

On December 5, 1994, at a meeting of the heads of OSCE countries, Ukraine, the Russian Federation, the USA and Great Britain signed the Budapest Memorandum. What is the price of the promises of Russia and the West?

By the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union, about 1/3 of the Soviet nuclear arsenal was located on the territory of Ukraine: intercontinental ballistic missiles and strategic bombers. However, it did not have complete control over these weapons – the launch keys remained with the Russian Federation.

On December 5, 1994, Ukraine, Russia, the USA and Great Britain signed the Budapest Memorandum. Ukraine abandoned the nuclear power in exchange for security guarantees. What happened in the end? The Russian Federation has violated the agreements, now threatening Ukraine and the world with a nuclear strike. What was promised to Ukraine and what actually happened.

The international community, especially the United States and Russia, sought to persuade Ukraine to give up its nuclear status. Persuasion was presented under a plausible pretext: “to reduce the threat of the proliferation of nuclear weapons.”

Leonid Kravchuk, the first president of Ukraine, recalled that at that time the country did not have the resources to maintain a nuclear arsenal. After all, this required tens of billions of dollars, and the infrastructure had to be built. In exchange for Ukraine's agreement to give up nuclear weapons, the United States, Russia and Great Britain promised:

1. Respect the independence and sovereignty and existing borders of Ukraine.
2. Do not use weapons against Ukraine, except for self-defense.
3. Refrain from putting economic pressure on Ukraine to gain an advantage.
4. Seek immediate action from the UN Security Council to help Ukraine if it becomes a victim of aggression or the target of a threat of aggression using nuclear weapons.
5. Not to use nuclear weapons against any state party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons that does not possess nuclear weapons, unless they themselves are attacked.

Thus, Ukraine, in exchange for the terms of the memorandum, acceded to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) as a state that no longer has nuclear weapons. The country transferred its entire arsenal to Russia.

After 20 years, one of the guarantor countries – Russia – broke all promises. Although the memorandum had an important political character, it did not have the legal force of a binding treaty. This became obvious in 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea and began an armed conflict in the Donbass. Ukraine and other countries regarded these actions as a violation of the Budapest Memorandum, but Russia argued that the document did not oblige it to specific actions, but only declared intentions, writes NEXTA publication.

The United States and Great Britain limited themselves to sanctions and military assistance, but did not send in troops and defend Ukrainian sovereignty. In October of this year, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky at a meeting of the European Council in Brussels described the situation as follows:

“And if Russia, which was the guarantor of the memorandum, violated it, then how can you trust in this document and how can you trust the other partners who promised to protect our territorial integrity and sovereignty? The answer is simple: it doesn't work. Does this document work? No. Do the agreements of other major partners with Russia work? No. This means that the agreements were violated not only between Ukraine and Russia, but also between Ukraine and all its partners. And, in fact, all these agreements failed.”

Now there is an opinion that if Ukraine had nuclear weapons, Russia would not dare to attack. Political scientist Oleg Sahakyan noted in a commentary to NEXTA that the conditional “red lines” are only products of “expert and political hallucinations” that are based on human fears. And Ukraine, with its operation in the Kursk region, showed that nuclear weapons are not “an absolute deterrent. It is quite possible to occupy territories, to occupy the territories of a nuclear state,” the expert noted.

Negotiation and security expert Nikolai Kapitonenko, in a conversation with NEXTA, emphasized that the experience of Ukraine in recent years has shown that the country can exist without nuclear weapons and NATO membership, although this creates serious security problems:

“And in my opinion, the West is quite ready for Ukraine to continue in the same spirit.”

History, as we know, does not tolerate the subjunctive mood. One can only guess how the situation would have developed if the Budapest Memorandum had not been signed. One thing is clear: events since 2014 have called into question the effectiveness of international guarantees that are not backed by legal force. This is what the Budapest Memorandum became.

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