Posted on 01/05/2023 3:43:00 PM PST by USA-FRANCE
According to the Western-sponsored Budapest Memorandum, Kiev gave up its nuclear weapons in return for the Russian pledge of respect for Ukrainian territorial integrity.
Russia’s full-fledged invasion of Ukraine has brought to mind a crucial post-Cold War agreement over Ukraine’s nuclear weapons capability – which resulted in Kiev giving up its nuclear arsenal in light of the US and UK's assurances that Moscow would respect the former Soviet republic’s sovereignty.
Ukraine possessed the world’s third-largest nuclear arsenal, which consisted of at least 1,900 strategic nuclear warheads. The country had inherited that infrastructure from the former communist Soviet republic.
If Ukraine had that strategic capability in the current conflict, it would have made a big difference and perhaps discouraged Vladimir Putin both from invading the country.
But after the collapse of the Soviets in 1991, the US and the UK convinced Ukraine to give up its nuclear weapons in return for Russia's commitment “to respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine”.
According to the deal, Moscow also pledged “to refrain from the threat or use of force” against Ukraine. However, with the current invasion of Ukraine, Russia clearly violates the 1994 nuke deal, experts say.
“Russia is in violation of the Budapest Memorandum of 1994 when it, together with the US and the UK, promised to uphold Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity if Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons.
Back in 2014, long before the current Russian invasion, Moscow annexed the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine. Pro-Russian separatists also claimed parts of Donbass region in eastern Ukraine in the same year. Prior to the ongoing Russian invasion.
Both Russian acts are a clear violation of Ukrainian sovereignty. “Russia has broken virtually all the commitments it undertook in that document,” Pifer said, referring to the 1994 Memorandum.
(Excerpt) Read more at trtworld.com ...
The Ukrainians should have never trusted our government.
Well, to some extent at least the US and UK are helping to support Ukrainian sovereignty with increasing levels of material support.
It would not surprise me in the least if there’s more than a bit of covert support going on, too.
They did that years ago. It was never worth more than the paper it was written on.
The Ukrainians SHOULD have continued following INTERNATIONAL LAW, which requires respecting long-established ethnic minorities, rather then ‘cleansing’ them. In fact, they did, for 24 years, and were left alone by Russia. Too bad (for them) that they changed policy, once the Neocons took control of their country.
What we have learned from the respect given to North Korea, but not to Libya; to all nuclear powers however small; only nukes gain the respect of the powerful.
Only nukes prevent invasion.
The first to show this was the United States, as much as I wish it weren't true.
But, here, with Ukraine, Russia demonstrates it as well.
That’s right!
much like an agreement with Kevin McCarthy.
It will be hard for them to wean themselves from the West with the flood of $$$ they are receiving, but that money won't do them any good in the long run. They need to mend fences with their neighbor, because Moscow not Washington will be their neighbor 5, 20, 100, 500 years from now. Turning itself into an autocratic puppet of the West didn't guarantee security, it destroyed it.
Not trusting the Russians should have been a given. They KNEW the Russians! They were utterly without excuse ... like current Russian generals having apparently forgotten about the mud and cold of Ukrainian battlefields.
What they did was akin to one mobster making an arrangement to give up their guns with a neighboring mobster because a distant mobster said the neighbor wouldn’t get grabby with territory.
Has Ukraine betrayed the “No NATO” pact as part of the Soviet break-up?
Do you promise to fleece the people, so long as both of you shall remain in power?
“I do!” said US and Ukraine leaders.
They did that years ago. It was never worth more than the paper it was written on.
Nah.
... So now they fall off the Frontline fence to the east?
They gave up strength in a deal which has been breached.
Who and where are the courts for recourse?
Well Son of a Bitch Joe, what does this look like? Economic coercion? It's true that Joe Biden leveraged $1 billion in aid to persuade Ukraine to oust its top prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, in March 2016.
Former Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin — who was fired after then-Vice President Joe Biden pressured the president of Ukraine to fire him as he investigated a company, Burisma, that employed Biden’s son, Hunter — says that he was told to back off the investigation into the company before he was fired.
Nobody should trust our government.
Did Ukraine ignore the Minsk Agreement it signed that would have brought peace to the region?
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