A Dummies guide to the Budapest Memorandum, as it pertains to Ukraine.
If you support Ukraine, you should know the story and context of this agreement between Ukraine, Russia, The USA and the United Kingdom were signatories to the agreement.
👉 What is the Budapest Memorandum agreement?:
The Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances comprises four substantially identical political agreements signed at the OSCE conference in Budapest, Hungary, on 5 December 1994, to provide security assurances by its signatories relating to the accession of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). The four memoranda were originally signed by four nuclear powers: Russia, the United States, the United Kingdom and France. China gave somewhat weaker individual assurances in separate documents.
Negotiations on security guarantees for Ukraine as a state that had voluntarily forsaken the world’s third largest nuclear arsenal were held not only in Budapest and not only in December 1994. Begun in April 1992 and held first with the US and then with the UK, Russia, and France, the talks ended on December 5, 1994, with the signing of the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances, whereby Ukraine became a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. In addition to Ukraine’s President Leonid Kuchma, this document was signed by Russian President Boris Yeltsin, US President Bill Clinton, and UK Prime Minister John Major.
China gave Ukraine security guarantees unilaterally in the governmental statement dated December 4, 1994, as did France in a declaration that was handed in to Ukraine’s delegation together with a covering letter signed by President Francois Mitterand on December 5, 1994.
👉 Munich Security Conference, President Zelenskyy speak truth to power:
19 February 2022 - 5 days before Russia’s full fledged invasion of Ukraine
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy publicly commented on the Budapest Memorandum by arguing that it provides no true guarantee of safety due to Russia's coercive power. Zelenskyy said "Since 2014, Ukraine has tried three times to convene consultations with the guarantor states of the Budapest Memorandum [i.e. United States and United Kingdom]. Four times without success.
Zelenskyy said further, “Ukraine has received security guarantees for abandoning the world's third nuclear capability. We don't have that weapon. We also have no security. We also do not have part of the territory of our state that is larger in area than Switzerland, the Netherlands or Belgium. And most importantly - we don’t have millions of our citizens. We don’t have all this”.
“Ukraine, he said - could have every right to believe that the Budapest Memorandum is not working and all the package decisions of 1994 are in doubt." This has proven to be a correct assessment and interpretation of the failure of assurances in the memorandum, if not through Trump’s intent to stop all support for Ukraine, then through Putins illegal and genocidal invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Putin Spins a Conspiracy Theory That Ukraine Is on a Path to Nuclear Weapons
Putin used Zelenskyy's comments as part of his claims that Ukraine could develop nuclear weapons, which has not materialised as Putin wanted the world to believe in 2022, as justification for his illegal invasion of Ukraine.
👉 Potted History of the Memorandum:
When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Ukraine found itself holding the world’s third largest nuclear arsenal, including some 1,900 strategic nuclear warheads that had been designed to attack the United States. Working in a trilateral dialogue with Ukrainian and Russian negotiators, American diplomats helped to broker a deal —the January 1994 Trilateral Statement — under which Ukraine agreed to transfer all of the strategic nuclear warheads to Russia for elimination and to dismantle all of the strategic delivery systems on its territory.
Ukraine did this on the condition that it receive security guarantees or assurances. The Budapest Memorandum, signed on December 5, 1994, by the leaders of Ukraine, Russia, the United States and the United Kingdom (the latter three being the depositary states of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, that is, the states that receive the accession documents of other countries that join the treaty) ) laid out a set of assurances for Ukraine. These included commitments to respect Ukraine’s independence, sovereignty and existing borders; to refrain from the threat or use of force against Ukraine’s territorial integrity and independence; and to refrain from economic coercion against Ukraine.
Under the agreement the Russian Federation provided security assurances to Ukraine in the form of promising neither to attack nor to threaten to attack them.
For clarity, Russia provided security assurances it would NOT threaten to or actually attack Ukraine.
In the US, neither the George H. W. Bush administration nor the Clinton administration was prepared to give a military commitment to Ukraine, and they did not believe the US Senate would ratify an international treaty and so the memorandum was adopted in more limited terms.
The other signatories (the United States, United Kingdom and France) pledged non-military support to Ukraine in exchange for its adherence to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. The memorandum bundled together a set of assurances that Ukraine had already held from the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE) Final Act, the United Nations Charter and the Non-Proliferation Treaty but the Ukrainian government found it valuable to have these assurances in a Ukraine-specific document.
👉 The Budapest memorandum gives signatories justification if they take action, but it does not force anyone to act in Ukraine.
The Budapest Memorandum was negotiated as a political agreement. It refers to assurances, not defined, but less than a military guarantee.The Budapest Memorandum was negotiated at political level, but it is not entirely clear whether the instrument is devoid entirely of legal provisions. It refers to assurances, but unlike guarantees, it does not impose a legal obligation of military assistance on its parties.
The memorandum has a requirement of consultation among the parties "in the event a situation arises that raises a question concerning the ... commitments" set out in the memorandum. Whether or not the memorandum sets out legal obligations, the difficulties that Ukraine has encountered since early 2014 may cast doubt on the credibility of future security assurances that are offered in exchange for nonproliferation commitments.
Russia illegal occupation of Crimea in 2014 and the illegal and genocidal invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022 are in blatant violations of the Budapest Memorandum, as well as Russia’s commitments under the CSCE Final Act and a 1997 bilateral Ukraine-Russia treaty.
👉 Responses to Russian aggression and breaches of the Budapest Memorandum:
Russia’s military occupation of Ukrainian territory on the Crimean peninsula constitutes a blatant violation of the commitments that Moscow undertook in the 1994 Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances for Ukraine. The United States and United Kingdom, the other two signatories, now have an obligation to support Ukraine and penalise Russia.
As signatories, the United States and United Kingdom have an obligation to respond, even if they are not obligated to respond with military force. In the period 2022 to January 2025 - The United States and the United Kingdom have both provided military and financial aid to support Ukraine, which one could argue fulfils the obligations set out in the Budapest Memorandum, bearing in mind the memorandum does not impose a legal obligation to provide military assistance.
However, as Donald Trump and his regime of grifters and inexperienced sycophants - have suggested or are indeed in the process of halting all assistance to Ukraine, it is clear the Budapest Memorandum has now been breached by Russia and potentially by the United States.
The Spirit of the Memorandum however has been broken by all parties to the agreement, as the plain sense of the agreement was in return for Ukraine surrendering it’s nuclear stockpile, Ukraines territorial integrity would be preserved both by a written assurance from Russia it would not attack or threaten to attack Ukraine and the western power signatories would provide (sufficient?) support to ensure Ukraine’s territorial integrity would be protected.
Upholding the terms of the memorandum over the past 30 years matters for the cause of nuclear nonproliferation. Security assurances were key to bringing Ukraine to agree to get rid of its nuclear arms. If Washington and London do not stand by the Budapest Memorandum now, it would discredit the idea of such assurances. Future security assurances could play a role in defusing nuclear proliferation cases, such as Iran.
👉 Update on assistance under the Budapest memorandum commitments in 2025:
United States:
President Zelenskyy on 28 February, 2025 - went to the Whitehouse, but walked into the Kremlin.
In February 2025, President Donald Trump suspended all forms of foreign aid to Ukraine, including military and humanitarian assistance. Additionally, the U.S. voted against a United Nations resolution condemning Russia for initiating the war in Ukraine.
These actions have raised questions about the United States' adherence to its security assurances under the Budapest Memorandum, including its implied commitment to provide support to Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity, and to refrain from the threat or use of force.
The United States publicly maintains that "the Memorandum is not legally binding", calling it a "political commitment". Donald Trump is now reneging on the USA’s commitments to the Budapest Memorandum, and in doing so will jeopardise all future promises and undertaking they might or have given (Taiwan?).
United Kingdom:
In contrast, the United Kingdom has continued to provide military and humanitarian support to Ukraine and has consistently backed UN resolutions condemning Russia's actions, suggesting that the UK is still upholding its commitments under the agreement.
After the failed attempt by Trump and Vance to humiliate President Zelenskyy at the public meeting and bust-up, Zelenskyy flew to Britain on 01 March, 2025 and was greeted by a warm hug from Keir Starmer on arrival.
The BBC reported that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has hailed a "meaningful and warm meeting" with Sir Keir Starmer - during which the two sides agreed a £2.26bn ($2.8bn) loan to Kyiv. The loan funds are "ensured by frozen Russian assets. Unlike the russian Whitehouse, a Downing Street spokesperson said Starmer reiterated his support for Ukraine "adding that the UK will always stand with them, for as long as it takes".
👉 United Nations impotence under the failed leadership of Antonio Gueterres:
President Zelenskyy was correct to call the UN out on it’s own folly and failures under Gueterres in March 2022. “The UN, which is supposed to defend peace and world security, cannot defend itself. When its Charter is violated. When one of the members of the UN Security Council annexes the territory of one of the founding members of the UN. And the UN itself ignores the Crimea Platform, the goal of which is to de-occupy Crimea peacefully and protect the rights of Crimeans.”
Today, the United Nations is a defunct and impotent organisation, essentially a salary gritting scheme for politicians. The head of the UN - Gueterres has almost completely ignored Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine and focuses itself daily on the plight of the Palestinians in Gaza. Gueterres has not provided the leadership or action to oust Russia from the organisation, an aggressor in contravention of UN values and rules. Gueterres has though, gone to meet with Vladimir Putin, in strict contravention of the rules that prevent UN employees from contact with indicted war criminals.
References and sources:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum
Zelenskyy Declines to Apologize To Trump After Oval Office Spat!
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The Minsk Agreements (I and II signed in 2014 and 2015 respectively) went the same way as the Budapest Memorandum - russia broke all three. I become extremely irate when I hear trump repeatedly state that he trusts the demagogic dictator putin to adhere to peace negotiations on ending russia's illegal war. trump is either deluded or utterly stupid to believe that this can succeed