{"id":3566,"date":"2022-01-07T00:01:16","date_gmt":"2022-01-07T00:01:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/atauk.org\/?p=3566"},"modified":"2022-09-19T20:38:01","modified_gmt":"2022-09-19T20:38:01","slug":"russia-guarantee-ukraine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/atauk.org\/index.php\/2022\/01\/07\/russia-guarantee-ukraine\/","title":{"rendered":"Russian Guarantees to Ukraine"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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As tension mounts over Russia\u2019s military build-up on Ukraine\u2019s border, and Western leaders work out how to respond, it should not be forgotten that Russia itself \u2013 as well as the United Kingdom and the United States \u2013 signed an agreement to respect Ukraine\u2019s borders, not threaten or use force against Ukraine, and refrain from using economic coercion against Ukraine.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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When the Soviet Union was dissolved on 25 December 1991, Ukraine found itself as the custodian of the third largest nuclear arsenal in the world.<\/p>

Russia \u2013 the official successor state to the Soviet Union \u2013 was in possession of by far the largest portion of the former Soviet Union\u2019s nuclear arsenal, but Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine all retained significant elements, including complete weapons systems \u2013 even though the command control infrastructure was all dependent upon Moscow.<\/p>

Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine all agreed to renounce their nuclear arsenals and to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty as non-nuclear weapons states.<\/p>

And to facilitate the transfer to Russia of all their nuclear warheads and fissile material, the West provided substantial financial incentives.<\/p>

The denuclearization of Belarus and Kazakhstan was relatively straightforward, but it became complicated in Ukraine.<\/p>

Ukraine\u2019s nuclear inheritance consisted of between 2,650 and 4,200 tactical nuclear weapons<\/a>, and almost 2,000 nuclear warheads on a variety of strategic systems<\/a>: intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), strategic bombers, and air-launched cruise missiles.<\/p>

The tactical systems were all transferred to Russia by the end of May 1992, although the process was interrupted when Ukraine\u2019s then President Leonid Kravchuk sought guarantees that those systems would be destroyed and not transferred into Russia\u2019s arsenal.<\/p>

Also, during 1992, Ukraine established \u201cadministrative control\u201d over the nuclear weapons systems remaining on its territory, placing them under the stewardship of Ukrainian military personnel and claiming to be able to block any Russian launch commands.<\/p>

Ukraine\u2019s leaders also began to question the wisdom of renouncing its nuclear weapons.<\/p>

There was concern that Ukraine was not getting its fair share of assistance for disposing of its nuclear weapons and infrastructure, and some wondered whether Ukraine should reverse its policy and seek to build the infrastructure necessary to maintain a small nuclear deterrent capability.<\/p>

Matters came to a head in the middle of 1993 when the Verkhovna Rada \u2013 Ukraine\u2019s parliament \u2013 voted to declare sole ownership of the nuclear weapons remaining on its territory.<\/p>

Shortly afterwards, Ukraine\u2019s denuclearization was put back on track through the provision of additional United States financial assistance for the dismantlement of ICBMs based in Ukraine, agreements between Russia and Ukraine on the Black Sea Fleet and the use of the port of Sevastopol, and on security assurances to Ukraine given by Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States.<\/p>

To cut a long story short, those initial security assurances were subsequently refined, clarified, and formalized in the \u201cBudapest Memorandum on Security Assurances\u201d signed by Ukraine, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States on 5 December 1994.<\/p>

In addition to nuclear assurances, the Memorandum\u2019s provisions included undertakings to respect Ukraine\u2019s borders, refrain from the threat or use of force against Ukraine, and to refrain even from economic coercion against Ukraine.<\/p>

Those undertakings were instrumental in persuading Ukraine to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty, formally committing itself to a future as a non-nuclear weapons state.<\/p>

Skip ahead to 2014, and the Budapest Memorandum is, perhaps, the most obvious among the international commitments that Russia violated when it occupied Crimea. \u00a0Russia, however, has sought to\u00a0misrepresent the Memorandum<\/a>\u00a0as being solely an agreement not to use nuclear weapons against Ukraine.<\/p>

The reality is that in the Budapest Memorandum, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States agreed to:<\/p>