In the ongoing clash over President Trump’s reluctance to extend security assurances to Ukraine to protect the country against an aggressor like Russia, one “minor” detail has received little, if any, attention.
Such assurances already exist — at least on paper — but have escaped public examination and analysis. Even Ukraine has only referred to them obliquely in its ongoing confrontation with the U.S. president.
So, let’s visit a little history on this subject.
In 1991, when the U.S.S.R. collapsed and Ukraine won its independence, the Soviets left thousands of nuclear weapons entrenched on Ukrainian soil. Those weapons made Ukraine the third most powerful nuclear nation in the world.
Ukraine inherited 130 UR-100N intercontinental ballistic missiles with six warheads each, 46 RT-23 Molodels ICBMs with 10 warheads each as well as 33 heavy bombers. The total? About 1,900 nuclear warheads.
With Western powers seeking to avoid nuclear proliferation, Ukraine was urged to return the weapons to Russia which would disassemble them.
After extended negotiations, Ukraine signed the Declaration of State Sovereignty of Ukraine (known as the Budapest Memorandum). Ukraine agreed not to accept, acquire, or produce nuclear weapons and its government declared that Ukraine would be a non-nuclear-weapon state.
Along with Ukraine, the Budapest Memorandum was signed December 5, 1994 in Budapest, Hungary by the, U.S., the United Kingdom and Russia. France and China signed a separate document but the assurances given Ukraine were basically the same. The pact also covered Belarus and Kazakhstan.
The agreement promised none of these nations would use force against Ukraine and respect its sovereignty. However, if the agreement were violated, the signatories would seek immediate action by the United Nations Security Council.
Ukraine believed that it would not be left alone should its independence be threatened by outside forces and, by 1996, Ukraine had returned all the nuclear weapons to Russia and became a party to the Non-Nuclear Proliferation Treaty.
We now, of course, know what has happened. In 2014, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, calling the agreement null and void, invaded and annexed Crimea. In response, the U.S., U.K. and France provided Ukraine with military and financial assistance and imposed economic sanction on Russia, but ruled out a “direct confrontation with Russia.”
Sadly, in the present war, the U.S. seems to have forgotten entirely about the memorandum. It would not be unfair to speculate that President Trump does not even know about it. He isn’t exactly a student of history — nor one to keep promises and commitments.
President Trump has charged that Ukraine started the war, called Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky a “dictator,” has paused $1 billion in military arms assistance for Ukraine, voted against a U.N. resolution condemning Russia as the aggressor in the war, temporarily stopped some intelligence sharing, and is “blackmailing” Zelensky by demanding rights to Ukraine’s valuable minerals.
Surely, many Ukrainians probably now regret having surrendered the nuclear weapons.
In December 2024 at a NATO foreign ministers’ meeting in Brussels, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha held up the Budapest Memorandum and stated, “This document failed to secure Ukrainian and trans-Atlantic security and we must avoid repeating such mistakes.”
Noteworthy: President Clinton, who pressured Ukraine to sign the agreement, expressed regrets for his decision in an interview in April 2023.
“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,” Clinton said.
He continued: “Kyiv was afraid to give them up because of a belief that a nuclear stockpile was the only thing to offer protection from an expansionist Russia.
“When it became convenient to him, President Putin broke it and first took Crimea and I feel terrible about it because Ukraine is a very important country.”
Now, there is no way of knowing what would have happened had Ukraine kept possession of the nuclear arsenal.
While Ukraine may not have used the nukes in the present war, the weapons might have served as a deterrent; Russia may not have wanted to risk a nuclear exchange with Ukraine. Also, Ukraine may have been able to use some of the weapons in conventional, non-nuclear operations.
There are many “what ifs” in this story, none of which can be answered with any certainty.
But one result is unquestionable: Democracies around the world know that it is risky to trust that the U.S. will keep its commitments.
Such assurances already exist — at least on paper — but have escaped public examination and analysis. Even Ukraine has only referred to them obliquely in its ongoing confrontation with the U.S. president.
So, let’s visit a little history on this subject.
In 1991, when the U.S.S.R. collapsed and Ukraine won its independence, the Soviets left thousands of nuclear weapons entrenched on Ukrainian soil. Those weapons made Ukraine the third most powerful nuclear nation in the world.
Ukraine inherited 130 UR-100N intercontinental ballistic missiles with six warheads each, 46 RT-23 Molodels ICBMs with 10 warheads each as well as 33 heavy bombers. The total? About 1,900 nuclear warheads.
With Western powers seeking to avoid nuclear proliferation, Ukraine was urged to return the weapons to Russia which would disassemble them.
After extended negotiations, Ukraine signed the Declaration of State Sovereignty of Ukraine (known as the Budapest Memorandum). Ukraine agreed not to accept, acquire, or produce nuclear weapons and its government declared that Ukraine would be a non-nuclear-weapon state.
Along with Ukraine, the Budapest Memorandum was signed December 5, 1994 in Budapest, Hungary by the, U.S., the United Kingdom and Russia. France and China signed a separate document but the assurances given Ukraine were basically the same. The pact also covered Belarus and Kazakhstan.
The agreement promised none of these nations would use force against Ukraine and respect its sovereignty. However, if the agreement were violated, the signatories would seek immediate action by the United Nations Security Council.
Ukraine believed that it would not be left alone should its independence be threatened by outside forces and, by 1996, Ukraine had returned all the nuclear weapons to Russia and became a party to the Non-Nuclear Proliferation Treaty.
We now, of course, know what has happened. In 2014, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, calling the agreement null and void, invaded and annexed Crimea. In response, the U.S., U.K. and France provided Ukraine with military and financial assistance and imposed economic sanction on Russia, but ruled out a “direct confrontation with Russia.”
Sadly, in the present war, the U.S. seems to have forgotten entirely about the memorandum. It would not be unfair to speculate that President Trump does not even know about it. He isn’t exactly a student of history — nor one to keep promises and commitments.
President Trump has charged that Ukraine started the war, called Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky a “dictator,” has paused $1 billion in military arms assistance for Ukraine, voted against a U.N. resolution condemning Russia as the aggressor in the war, temporarily stopped some intelligence sharing, and is “blackmailing” Zelensky by demanding rights to Ukraine’s valuable minerals.
Surely, many Ukrainians probably now regret having surrendered the nuclear weapons.
In December 2024 at a NATO foreign ministers’ meeting in Brussels, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha held up the Budapest Memorandum and stated, “This document failed to secure Ukrainian and trans-Atlantic security and we must avoid repeating such mistakes.”
Noteworthy: President Clinton, who pressured Ukraine to sign the agreement, expressed regrets for his decision in an interview in April 2023.
“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,” Clinton said.
He continued: “Kyiv was afraid to give them up because of a belief that a nuclear stockpile was the only thing to offer protection from an expansionist Russia.
“When it became convenient to him, President Putin broke it and first took Crimea and I feel terrible about it because Ukraine is a very important country.”
Now, there is no way of knowing what would have happened had Ukraine kept possession of the nuclear arsenal.
While Ukraine may not have used the nukes in the present war, the weapons might have served as a deterrent; Russia may not have wanted to risk a nuclear exchange with Ukraine. Also, Ukraine may have been able to use some of the weapons in conventional, non-nuclear operations.
There are many “what ifs” in this story, none of which can be answered with any certainty.
But one result is unquestionable: Democracies around the world know that it is risky to trust that the U.S. will keep its commitments.
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