Posted on 09/18/2023 9:41:40 AM PDT by ChicagoConservative27
President Trump does not support the dictator Zelensky.
“President Trump does not support the dictator Zelensky.”
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The fact that the Ukrainian people full-heartedly support their President in his quest to get Russias invading troops to retreat back to Moscow where they belong, doesn’t make Zelensky a dictator.
The fact that Trump want to send back illegal immigrant invaders from the USA back to Mexico, doesn’t make him a dictator either.
A woman defending herself from a thug trying to rape her, doesn’t make her a female dictator.
To me, it’s more dictatorial to invade others homes and annex others territories with violence and death - Putin does that. He does that in a typical Neo-soviet way.
Zelensky is wanting to perpetuate his dictatorship.
Almost 80% of Ukrainians polled hold him responsible for the corruption of his country.
He needs the war to continue to hold power and avoid holding elections that would hold him accountable.
“Can you talk to anyone without wishing death on them?”
I once got a bagel and cream cheese from a nice Jewish man in San Francisco. Geary Street, to be more specific. Him I wished a long life and I said a prayer for his family.
He’d think you were absolutely meshugga now.
So we agree on the content of the Memorandum, that’s good.
That is very good, and obviates the need for any amendatory creative description of what is in it, minus a single word quoted from the actual content. It says what it says, not what one may desire it to have said.
However, the Minsk agreements did not nullify the Budapest Memorandum.
But they did.
In this memorandum, Ukraine agreed to give up its nuclear weapons (WHICH INDEED THEY DID!), in exchange for security assurances from the other signatory countries.
FALSE. That is creative fiction. Ukraine agreed to give up its nuclear weapons in exchange for international recognition. The United States and Russia demanded that Ukraine join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) as a non-nuclear state in order to obtain recognition. It was a side agreement to the NPA. With Yugoslavia in recent memory, the demanding parties agreed they did not want a nuclear Yugoslavia.
The MEMORANDUM is a MEMORANDUM and could not and did not create any binding legal promise by Russia or anybody else.
Ukraine was assured that UN Security Council consideration would be sought.
Volodymyr Vasylenko, Ukraine’s former representative at NATO, who took part in drawing up the conceptual principles and specific provisions of the Budapest memorandum:
“the form and content of the Memorandum ... show that, unfortunately, the Budapest talks on giving Ukraine security guarantees did not eventually result in a comprehensive international agreement that creates an adequate special international mechanism to protect our national security.”
According to V. Vasylenko, “Ukraine had to give up nuclear weapons for it to become sovereign state and its independent status to be recognized all over the world.”
Ukraine's forgotten security guarantee: The Budapest Memorandum
DW News [German]
Date 05.12.2014
[Excerpts]
Twenty years ago, the Budapest Memorandum marked the end of many years of negotiations between the successor states of the Soviet Union and leading Western nuclear powers. Ukraine had a special place in the talks.After the collapse of the USSR in 1991, the eastern European country inherited 176 strategic and more than 2,500 tactical nuclear missiles. Ukraine at that point had the third-largest arsenal of nuclear weapons in the world after the United States and Russia.
But Leonid Kravchuk, then the president of Ukraine, told DW that was only formally the case. De facto, Kyiv was powerless.
"All the control systems were in Russia. The so-called black suitcase with the start button, that was with Russian president Boris Yeltsin."
Western pressure
Ukraine could have kept the nuclear weapons, but the price would have been enormous, Kravchuk says. Though the carrier rockets were manufactured in the southern Ukrainian city of Dnipropetrovsk, the nuclear warheads were not. It would have been too expensive for Ukraine to manufacture and maintain them on its own.
"It would have cost us $65 billion (53 billion euros), and the state coffers were empty," Kravchuk said.
Additionally, the West threatened Ukraine with isolation since the missiles were supposedly aimed at the United States. Therefore, "the only possible decision" was to give up the weapons, according to Kravchuk.
[...]
"Nowhere does it say that if a country violates this memorandum, that the others will attack militarily," said Gerhard Simon, Eastern Europe expert at the University of Cologne.
German journalist and Ukraine expert Winfried Schneider-Deters agrees, telling DW, "The agreement is not worth the paper on which it was written."
Cyber-Security: The Threats from Russia and the Middle East, Ferry de Kerckove, CGAI Fellow, Canadian Global Affairs Institute, (2019), at 2-3: (footnotes omitted)
On the latter point, the 1994 Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances (not “guarantees”), although considered an important landmark, had a single purpose: to convince Ukraine to abandon its nuclear weapons in exchange for a commitment by the signatories to provide it with support: “1. The United States of America, the Russian Federation, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, reaffirm their commitment to Ukraine, in accordance with the principles of the CSCE [Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe] Final Act, to respect the Independence and Sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine.” The memorandum, although formally signed, is not a treaty. Indeed, “Although signatories ‘reaffirm their commitment’ to Ukraine in many passages, the memorandum requires them to do almost nothing concrete, in the event that Ukraine’s sovereignty – territorial or political – is violated. There aren’t any hard enforcement mechanisms.” Ukraine is the subject of the memorandum, rather than a full participant. Furthermore, according to Volodymyr Vasylenko, Ukraine’s former representative at NATO, who took part in drawing up the conceptual principles and specific provisions of the Budapest memorandum, “the form and content of the Memorandum ... show that, unfortunately, the Budapest talks on giving Ukraine security guarantees did not eventually result in a comprehensive international agreement that creates an adequate special international mechanism to protect our national security.”
Why care about Ukraine and the Budapest Memorandum
Steven Pifer Thursday, December 5, 2019
Brookings.edu
[excerpt]
Washington did not promise unlimited support. The Budapest Memorandum contains security “assurances,” not “guarantees.” Guarantees would have implied a commitment of American military force, which NATO members have. U.S. officials made clear that was not on offer. Hence, assurances.Beyond that, U.S. and Ukrainian officials did not discuss in detail how Washington might respond in the event of a Russian violation.
https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/Ukraine-Nuclear-Weapons
ARMS CONTROL ASSOCIATIONUkraine, Nuclear Weapons, and Security Assurances at a Glance
FACT SHEETS & BRIEFS
Last Reviewed:
February 2022Contact: Daryl G. Kimball, Executive Director, (202) 463-8270 x107
[EXCERPT]
1994 Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances
To solidify security commitments to Ukraine, the United States, Russia, and the United Kingdom signed the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances on December 5, 1994. A political agreement in accordance with the principles of the Helsinki Accords, the memorandum included security assurances against the threat or use of force against Ukraine’s territory or political independence. The countries promised to respect the sovereignty and existing borders of Ukraine. Parallel memorandums were signed for Belarus and Kazakhstan as well. In response, Ukraine officially acceded to the NPT as a non-nuclear weapon state on December 5, 1994. That move met the final condition for ratification of START, and on the same day, the five START states-parties exchanged instruments of ratification, bringing the treaty into force.
The Budapest Memorandum was a POLITICAL agreement, not a binding LEGAL agreement. But what of those "principles of the Helsinki Accords?"
https://www.britannica.com/event/Helsinki-Accords
[excerpt]
The Helsinki Accords were primarily an effort to reduce tension between the Soviet and Western blocs by securing their common acceptance of the post-World War II status quo in Europe. The accords were signed by all the countries of Europe (except Albania, which became a signatory in September 1991) and by the United States and Canada. The agreement recognized the inviolability of the post-World War II frontiers in Europe and pledged the 35 signatory nations to respect human rights and fundamental freedoms and to cooperate in economic, scientific, humanitarian, and other areas. The Helsinki Accords are nonbinding and do not have treaty status.
As with the Budapest Memorandum, the Helsinki Accords were a NONBINDING statement of political intent and did not have treaty status.
Ukraine would NEVER have done such a HUGE move of getting rid of their nuclear weapons, without assurances! They RESPECTED their part of the deal. Thus, it wasn’t a “toilet paper-deal” as you say...
As a matter of historical fact, Ukraine made precisely such a deal. As was explained, "the West threatened Ukraine with isolation since the missiles were supposedly aimed at the United States. Therefore, 'the only possible decision' was to give up the weapons, according to Kravchuk."
Assuredly you can not wish security guarantees into the Memorandum and, therefore, you cannot quote them in the Memorandum.
The Budapest Memorandum served its purpose. It gave Ukrainian officials enough political cover to sign the NPT and give up the nukes which were useless for Ukraine.
Getting rid of ALL nuclear weapons, as they did, is an earth-shattering military-political move. You can’t ignore such a massive thing. Its the Power of the Budapest Memorandum.
It was not the power of the Budapest Memorandum that got Ukraine to sign. It was the united power of the United States and Russia demanding that Ukraine give up the nukes for recognition. As was conceded, Ukraine had no choice.
Moreover, Ukraine did not first agree to get rid of the nukes with the Budapest Memorandum. Ukraine signed in agreement to the Lisbon Protocol of May 23, 1992 to adhere to the Non-Proliferation Treaty in the shortest possible time. The Protocol and the correspondence of President GHW Bush leave no room for misunderstanding. Ukraine delayed and delayed and tried to submit a partial disarmament which was met by a refusal to even receive it. Then theyu got their mind right and signed for recognition.
https://2009-2017.state.gov/documents/organization/27389.pdf
START Treaty
LISBON PROTOCOL of May 23, 1992
Protocol to the Treaty between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on the Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms
ARTICLE VThe Republic of Byelarus, the Republic of Kazakhstan, and Ukraine shall adhere to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons of July 1, 1968 as non-nuclear weapon states Parties in the shortest possible time, and shall begin immediately to take all necessary action to this end in accordance with their constitutional practices.
Letter from US President G. H. W. Bush to Ukrainian President L. Kravchuk, June 23, 1992
Dear Mr. President:On May 23 in Lisbon, five nations signed a protocol which opened the way for all five to ratify and become parties to the START Treaty. This historic accomplishment recognizes the essential role of Ukraine in fulfilling the obligations of the former Soviet Union under the Treaty. Imlementation of the START Treaty will enhance stability by substantially reducing nuclear weapons and strategic offensive arms and by laying a foundation for further reductions. The United States looks forward to working with Ukraine as a full and equal partner in implementing the Treaty and reducing the burden of nuclear weapons that are a legacy of the former Soviet Union.
As part of this agreement, Ukraine will adhere to the Non-Proliferation Treaty in the shortest possible time. This is an important step along the path laid out in the statement of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine on the non-nuclear status of Ukraine. When the Non-Proliferation Treaty was negotiated in 1968 the United States formally declared its intention to seek immediate action in the United Nations Security Council to provide assistance to any non-nuclear weapons state party that is the object of aggression or threats of aggression in which nuclear weapons are used. Mr. President, let me formally state that the United States stands by that commitment to Ukraine.
[...]
https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/sites/default/files/documents/qviw5v-c5kmg/28.pdf
Letter from President George H. W. Bush to President Leonid Kravchuk via Privacy Channels. December 4, 1992.Over the past year, the United States and its partners have welcomed Ukraine into the western community of nations. Ukraine is a party to csce and the CFE treaty, and a member of the North Atlantic Cooperation Council. Ukraine has demonstrated its commitment to peace by the bravery of your peacekeepers now on duty in Bosnia. Ukraine's pledge in its declaration of sovereignty to be a non-nuclear state has been particularly welcomed throughout the world.
- - - - -
While the Minsk agreements were focused on addressing the conflict in Eastern Ukraine run by Russian separatists, they did not nullify the Budapest Memorandum.
A binding treaty takes precedent over a non-binding Memorandum. In any case, the revoutionary state of Ukraine was not a party to the Budapest Memorandum.
The Minsk Accords were a ceasefire agreement which Ukraine entered into in preference to being destroyed by Russia.
The Budapest Memorandum's non-binding assurance given to Ukraine was:
4. The Russian Federation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the United States of America reaffirm their commitment to seek immediate United Nations Security Council action to provide assistance to Ukraine, as a non-nuclear-weapon state party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, if Ukraine should become a victim of an act of aggression or an object of a threat of aggression in which nuclear weapons are used.
United Nations Security Council (UNSC) action was sought and Ukraine received such UNSC action as it is likely to get. As Ukraine and the rest of the world well knew when Ukraine signed the NPT and the Memorandum, Russia holds a Security Council veto.
Security "assurances" are non-binding political promises, unlike the legally enforceable "guarantees" of treaties. It is like the difference between a pinky swear and an enforceable contract.
K’va di gelet ha na kalon.
Agree, the Ukes have never done a single thing for us.
But...Burisma.
And FR Youkazoids parrot the moronic lines of that degenerate grifter all day long, over and over and over; "Putin is like Hitler! Russia's like Nazi Germany and wants to conquer Europe! Polly want a cracker! Squawk! Squawk!
Why yes!!! He's just like Trump, Churchill, Charles Martel, Jefferson, Lincoln, Washington, Reagan and all of history's greatest leaders!!!! Yes he is! And Putin is just Hitlerrrrr!!!!!
Little degenerate, gay-dancing, piano dick-playing, running around naked in grocery stores, grifting scumbag is a far more accurate description of this fraudulent, B-grade actor.
Bwahahahaha!!!
It’s OK if you want to get a little drool on the chin about your hero. I’ve never understood the almost worshipful stance some people take with politicians, but whatever floats your boat.
But Zelensky is nothing like Trump. And remember, they’re both flawed human beings just like the rest of us.
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