Budapest Memorandum

Budapest Memorandum [Будапештський меморандум; Budapeshtskyi memorandum]. An agreement reached on 5 December 1994 by which Ukraine surrendered the Soviet nuclear weapons on its territory in exchange for security assurances by the principal nuclear powers—the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America. By this agreement Ukraine also acceded to the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) as a non-nuclear weapons state (NNWS). In turn, the three major powers committed themselves to: respect Ukraine’s sovereignty, independence, and existing borders; refrain from using force and never to use nuclear weapons against Ukraine; refrain as well from economic coercion; call on the United Nations should Ukraine become a victim of aggression; and consult among themselves should these commitments come into question. The Russian invasion of the Crimea in 2014 followed by its annexation and the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 not only violated the Budapest Memorandum but made clear that in international relations non-nuclear weapons states would henceforth have no defence against aggression by those with nuclear weapons.

After the collapse of the USSR in 1991, Ukraine held the world’s third-largest nuclear arsenal—some 1900 strategic nuclear warheads. Nuclear weapons were also located in Belarus and Kazakhstan, and they likewise fell under the Budapest Memoranda. The United States considered it safer from a proliferation point of view if the Russian Federation under President Boris Yeltsin were to act as custodian of all Soviet nuclear weapons. The US therefore worked to achieve an agreement to de-nuclearize Ukraine along with the other two ex-Soviet republics.

Ukraine signed on to the Lisbon Protocol in May 1992, by which it acceded to the NPT and to becoming an NNWS as soon as possible. Ultimately, in December 1994, at the summit meeting of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) in Budapest the agreement was signed by the three nuclear powers and Ukraine. France and China, the other two nuclear powers, added their signatures later. In exchange for surrendering its warheads to the Russian Federation and dismantling its nuclear capability, Ukraine received enriched uranium for its nuclear power plants from the Russian Federation as well as economic assistance from the United States.

Ukraine’s position on nuclear weapons was ambivalent. At the end of the Soviet era it explicitly aimed for nuclear disarmament and a non-aligned status. Later, there was reluctance to accept the terms of the NPT and Budapest Agreement in view of the apparent danger to its own security posed by the aggressive posture of the Russian Federation. But Ukraine had no other choice since it risked international ostracism and lacked the practical means to maintain, upgrade, and use the nuclear weapons remaining on its territory.

The Russian Federation first violated the Budapest Memorandum in 2003 when it threatened to capture Tuzla Island in the Sea of Azov (see the Tuzla Island conflict). It more clearly violated the Agreement in 2014 by annexing the Crimea and sending its forces into the Donbas in support of the separatists. Then in 2022, with its unprovoked and unjustified full-scale invasion of the country, the Russian Federation nullified the Agreement while claiming not to have done so and threatening to use nuclear weapons against its neighbor. None of the signatories acted to restrain the aggressor or to enforce the terms of the Agreement. Whether their ‘security assurances’ (as opposed to ‘guarantees’) were legal obligations or merely political promises became a topic of debate.

In 2023, at the height of the Russo-Ukrainian war and particularly in view of the failure of the Budapest Memorandum, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky initiated a search for allies who would agree to offer reliable security arrangements against future aggression as a matter of vital necessity for national survival. As of mid-May 2024, according to US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, Ukraine had concluded or was negotiating such agreements with 32 countries, including Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
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Bohdan Harasymiw
[This article was written in 2024.]