The Infamous Budapest Memorandum

How the victim was forced to renounce its means of defense against its long-time abuser.

I wrote this piece last year, but the topic remains as timely as ever. In fact, it is even more relevant now than ever before. Therefore, I am republishing it with some slight modifications.

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30 years ago, on December 5, 1994, Ukraine renounced its nuclear arsenal and was forced to transfer it to Russia with pressure from the US under Clinton Administration. Former US President Bill Clinton last year said in an interview that he regrets having convinced Ukraine back in 1994 to give up its nuclear weapons.

He said:

“I feel a personal stake because I got them (Ukraine) to agree to give up their nuclear weapons. And none of them believe that Russia would have pulled this stunt if Ukraine still had their weapons... They (Ukraine) were afraid to give them up because they thought that’s the only thing that protected them from an expansionist Russia.”

Ukrainian leadership already back then had concerns that this would leave it vulnerable to Russian aggression in the future, and therefore first resisted these demands from the US However Clinton Administration was steadfast and Ukraine, having acquired its independence recently after centuries of Russian yoke, was in need of recognition by the international community and financial assistance. Therefore its leadership asked at least for some solid security guarantees in exchange. But this was also refused by the US So, in the end the best it could offer to Ukraine was the signing of the ambiguous Budapest Memorandum.

After having achieved independence in 1991, Ukraine had the third largest nuclear arsenal in the world. In fact, initially, US didn't even want Ukraine to declare its independence due exactly to this fact. Earlier, then-president George H. W. Bush had traveled to Ukraine and implored Ukrainian government not to declare independence and not to dissolve the Soviet Union. Only after it became crystal clear that Soviet Union cannot be salvaged, did the US and the larger Western world have to accept this outcome.

As detailed earlier, the West was keen on keeping the Soviet Union, the different incarnation of the Russian Empire, intact. Its all efforts therefore were directed not towards letting its captive nations to obtain their freedom, but for the abusive empire to perpetuate itself. They had the bizarre illusion that a "democratized" and "westernized" Soviet Union/Russia would be a reliable partner and thus were keen on keeping the status quo.

One needs to understand that, strangely enough, the West has never regarded Russia, in its different incarnations, as an existential civilizational threat, although Russia, throughout its history has given many reasons to conclude exactly just that. For the West, Russia has been, at worst, a "wayward child", but an integral part of the global system nevertheless, which needs only be convinced/educated to come to its senses and "behave properly". And then everything would be fine, they thought.

As a result, even after the fall of the Soviet Union, in the disputes between Russia and its former colonies, the West tended towards taking Russia’s side. The most appalling example of which was the Budapest Memorandum, which Ukraine was forced to sign in 1994. Not "convinced" as Bill Clinton evasively puts it, but literally forced.

It was maybe the only example in modern history when the victim was being deprived of its means of defence, and not the abuser of its means of attack. To add insult to injury, the victim, who finally managed to free himself after centuries of thraldom and genocide, was forced to relinquish his arms, his vital means of defence and transfer them to his abuser. Under the agreement Ukraine transferred all of its nuclear warheads, and (this is important to keep in mind) non-nuclear but potentially nuclear-capable ballistic missiles to Russia - those same missiles which Russia now fires on Ukrainian cities and civilian infrastructure.

In a sane and just world, it would be demanded that Russia - the savage abusive criminal, and not Ukraine, relinquish its nuclear arsenal and, preferably, transfer it to the latter. It would be demanded that Russia demilitarizes and transfers its non-nuclear but potentially nuclear-capable weapons to Ukraine.

This would be dictated not only by basic moral norms, but also by the notion of justice and logical considerations. Ukraine has been the technology hub of the USSR and the driver of its military-industrial complex. Its military might rested mostly on the shoulders of Ukrainian scientists and engineers. The nuclear and nuclear-capable weapons that Ukraine had were produced in Ukraine, by Ukrainians. So, it should be only logical to conclude that the property rights to those weapons should belong to the new Ukrainian republic. Moreover, some of the nuclear weapons that Russia possessed were also developed by Ukrainians. So, also by all standards of logic and justice, if anyone had to relinquish and transfer its nuclear arsenal it should have been Russia, not Ukraine.

But those inexplicable, subconscious sympathies the West had always harbored for Russia (the roots of this mysterious and at the same time bizarre feeling still wait to be fully uncovered by future historians, psychologists and philosophers) had their way and appallingly, western countries, first and foremost the US, acted in the interests not of the victim, but of the abuser. We ended up with the infamous Budapest Memorandum, which was forced upon Ukraine to the advantage of Russia. Among other things, the signatories, US, UK and Russia agreed to the following in regards to Ukraine:

• Respect its independence and sovereignty in the existing borders.

• Refrain from the threat or the use of force against the signatory.

• Refrain from economic coercion designed to subordinate to their own interest the exercise by the signatory of the rights inherent in its sovereignty and thus to secure advantages of any kind.

• Refrain from the use of nuclear arms against the signatory.

The Budapest Memorandum is what brought us to the current predicament. For the first time in modern history a nuclear country attacked a non-nuclear one and, this is important, made advantage of its nuclear weapons against the country it invaded. Technically, Russia has not used nuclear weapons against Ukraine, but since the start of the invasion it had essentially used its nuclear status covertly to gain advantage on the battlefield. By its constant nuclear blackmail, from the beginning, it has been scaring away Western nations from full-fledged military support of Ukraine. And sowing fear and discord into Western societies through its 5th Column, who, among other things, have been assiduously trumping up the trope of a "nuclear apocalypse" to discourage Western governments from supporting Ukraine in its fight for survival against this savage, genocidal invader.

As a result, Western supply of weapons to Ukraine has been slow, cautious, lackluster and thus never enough. Moreover, also as a result of Russia’s nuclear blackmail, until very recently Ukraine was hamstrung in its war effort and forced to fight with one arm tied behind its back by the prohibition to strike deep inside Russia with Western-provided missiles. All this has been prolonging the immense suffering of Ukrainians and giving Russia an upper hand. Some of the countries, like Germany, because of this blackmail were even wary of supplying any lethal weapons until much later. Not to mention that had Russia not possessed nuclear weapons, United States, either alone or in coalition with other Western allies, would have entered the war actively on the side of Ukraine and would have finished Russia within a very short amount of time.

Many would agree that Russia has violated the terms of Budapest Memorandum when it annexed Crimea and invaded Donbas in 2014, to the tacit acceptance of the other signatories - i.e, US and UK. However, Russia had violated it even much earlier in a more covert way. As we can see from its terms, the memorandum stipulated that the signatories should also refrain from covert influence on Ukraine in the form of economic pressure or else. However, especially starting from 2004, after the Orange Revolution, when Ukraine, for the first time, attempted to throw off the Russian yoke completely and permanently move towards the West, Russia has initiated a full-fledged campaign to destabilize Ukraine in order to bring it back to its orbit. Sowing discord into Ukrainian society through its insidious propaganda, corrupting and infiltrating into its vital institutions, like security forces and judiciary among others, and through economic blackmail. Also, one should not forget that Russia had threatened Ukraine militarily already back in 2003 with its attempt to annex the Tuzla Island near Crimea.

None of this would have happened if Ukraine hadn't given up its nuclear arsenal under Western pressure in 1994 under the false promise of security guarantees. If the victim hadn’t been pressured to handicap itself by renouncing its means of defence and transferring them to its former colonial abuser. Ukrainian cities wouldn’t be flattened, Ukrainians wouldn’t be tortured, raped, castrated and beheaded at the hands of that same genocidal invader in front of whom they were forced to prostrate themselves by the West in 1994.

Thus, the military help that United States is now providing to Ukraine is not charity, and primarily not even an investment, but an obligation. Both moral and contractual. An obligation that United States had been reneging on since 2014 already and is still, in fact, underdelivering. Somehow, the opponents of supporting Ukraine, especially those in the dissident Right and the far-Left, conveniently ignore this basic fact - either out of ignorance or outright malice. As an alternative, if they don’t want American taxpayer money to be “funneled to Ukraine”, and have any trace of moral integrity, then they should advocate for giving back to Ukraine its nuclear weapons, which it had to renounce with the pressure of their government back in 1994. That would at least be a principled position. And frankly, it would solve all the problems immediately. Upon re-acquiring its nuclear status Ukraine surely will not need any military help anymore.

Moving forward therefore, it would be only fair to allow Ukraine to re-instate its nuclear status. No security “guarantees” can trump the possession of nuclear weapons. There’s no better insurance, there’s no better security guarantee than a nuclear deterrent. One that Ukraine had been forced to renounce and which, given the new extreme circumstances, it should be allowed to re-claim. The Ukrainian government must, at the very least, make it part of the bargain during the peace negotiation process after the war.

This could be achieved, for example, by simply allowing Ukraine to develop its own nuclear weapons, and providing some materials if needed (all of this happening in secret, if necessary), although Ukraine possesses all the necessary infrastructure and expertise to develop nuclear weapons on its own. This would ensure Ukraine has its own Samson Option, which would serve as a reliable deterrent against any future Russian aggression.

Alternatively, in best case scenario, it can be demanded that Russia transfer at least a portion of its nuclear arsenal to Ukraine, as part of reparations. The rest being of course dismantled. Or, the new republics that could potentially separate from Russia and form their own independent states would transfer their nuclear arsenal to Ukraine. This would effectively prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, something that the United States and other Western nations were so afraid of when they pressured Ukraine in the early 90s. Post-Soviet and post-Russian nuclear arsenal would still be concentrated in one place. Just instead of Russia, it would be possessed by Ukraine, its rightful owner. Something that should have been done back in 1994.

Ukraine, a civilized Western nation, who paid with its blood to become part of the West, unlike Russia, would use its nuclear status to protect Western interests, not to endanger them. Moreover, it can serve as the security guarantor of the newly emerged independent post-Russian states. This would be especially important in light of the threat of Chinese expansion and potential revanchist encroachments from what would possibly remain of imperial Russia.