Ukraine on Tuesday blasted an agreement struck 30 years ago under which it relinquished nuclear weapons in exchange for security assurances that never materialised, as it makes a concerted push for an invitation to join the NATO alliance.
Kyiv is desperately calling for robust security guarantees to protect it from renewed Russian aggression as U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s return to the White House raises fears of a rapidly-struck settlement to the war that would leave it exposed.
Ukraine’s foreign ministry pointed to the 1994 Budapest Memorandum which saw Kyiv give up the world’s third largest nuclear arsenal in return for security assurances, including from Russia, after the 1991 Soviet breakup.
“Today, the Budapest Memorandum is a monument to short-sightedness in strategic security decision-making,” the ministry wrote in a statement, marking this week’s anniversary of the Dec. 5, 1994, agreement.
It said the agreement “should serve as a reminder to the current leaders of the Euro-Atlantic community that building a European security architecture at the expense of Ukraine’s interests, rather than taking them into consideration is destined to failure”.
Ukraine has denounced the memorandum since 2014, long before the 2022 invasion, when Russian troops seized and annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula before backing paramilitary proxies in the east.
The fighting in Ukraine’s east, which killed thousands, was brought to an uneasy ceasefire followed by dozens of rounds of talks under what was known as the Minsk agreements.
Even after almost three years of all-out war, Kyiv has balked at the prospect of a return to similar negotiations that could see a temporary ceasefire but leave open the prospect of a new Russian invasion.
“Enough of the Budapest Memorandum. Enough of the Minsk Agreements. Twice is enough, we cannot fall into the same trap a third time. We simply have no right to do so,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said.
Kyiv wants NATO members to issue an invitation at a meeting of the alliance’s foreign ministers that starts on Tuesday, as the invasion grinds toward its three-year mark and Russia makes battlefield gains.
The foreign ministry statement called on the United States and Britain, also signatories to the 1994 memorandum, as well as France and China, which it said also acceded to it, to support the provision of security guarantees to Ukraine.
“We are convinced that the only real guarantee of security for Ukraine, as well as a deterrent to further Russian aggression against Ukraine and other states, is Ukraine’s full membership in NATO,” it said.
Russia sees the idea of Ukraine’s integration into NATO as anathema and says it is an unacceptable security threat.