The Office of the President stated that the Budapest Memorandum was violated before 2014: explanation
The Office of the President (OP) is convinced that Ukraine's security guarantees under the Budapest Memorandum were violated long before the Russian aggression in 2014, but updating its provisions could help create stronger negotiating positions on Donetsk, Luhansk, and Crimea.
The OP states this in their commentary.
"..The memorandum on security guarantees associated with Ukraine's accession to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, signed in Budapest on December 5, 1994, became one of the most underestimated documents created in the turbulent 1990s on the USSR ruins.
This document states that Ukraine, renouncing the third-largest nuclear arsenal in the world at the time and, making the largest contribution to global peace and security after World War II, received assurances from the world's leading military powers on the inviolability of their security and existing borders. The signatories of the Memorandum not only reaffirmed their commitment not to use nuclear weapons against Ukraine but also:
- Paragraph 2 of the Memorandum reaffirmed their commitment to refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine, and that none of their weapons will ever be used against Ukraine;
- Paragraph 3 of the Memorandum reaffirmed their commitment to refrain from economic pressure to subjugate Ukraine's sovereignty rights to their self-interest, and thus to get any benefit, under the principles of the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe.
Analyzing the Budapest Memorandum, we conclude that security guarantees for Ukraine were violated long before 2014. For example, it's worth mentioning the well-known border confrontation in 2003 in the conflict around the island of Tuzla, which threatened the territorial integrity of Ukraine. No less dangerous are the so-called gas wars manifesting conscious economic pressure aimed at subjugating Ukraine to its own interests.
The world has not responded properly to such breaches of commitment by one of the Memorandum signatories, which has grown over the years, eventually leading to outright armed aggression. Such an outright disregard for security obligations to Ukraine would call into question the authority of the signatures and promises of the representatives of the guarantor states under the Budapest Memorandum.
Who will then fulfill other similar agreements? Ignoring the obligations of the signatory states under the Budapest Memorandum to Ukraine calls into question the whole body of international treaties on non-proliferation and control of weapons of mass destruction.
Given that the global task of non-proliferation remains relevant, and creating new international instruments that will ensure the security of specific states in the event of renunciation of nuclear weapons or intentions to produce them, we state that the Budapest Memorandum needs to be updated. Its further non-compliance could block achieving new diplomatic solutions in global security. Given also the long duration of the violation by one of the signatory states of the Memorandum obligations, we insist on the need for a joint work of other guarantor states to restore the security and territorial integrity of Ukraine.
We want to emphasize that it is not the position of one of the political teams in Ukraine, one power team. It may be a nationwide stand which is much stronger.
That is why President Volodymyr Zelenskyi proposed the fifth question for a nationwide poll on October 25, 2020, on the Budapest Memorandum: "Should Ukraine raise the issue at the international level today: are all the signatories of the memorandum fulfilling their commitments, or no one?" Our state needs a mandate from the people to appeal to the signatory states of the Memorandum to fulfill their obligations.
We have to remind you that in the five years since 2014, then Ukrainian authorities have done nothing to prepare for the de-occupation of Crimea. They also separated Crimean and Donbas cases in the talks. Updating the provisions of the Budapest Memorandum can help our country to restore the opportunities lost during that time, creating much stronger negotiating positions together on Donetsk, Luhansk, and Crimea," the OP added.
