Russian President Boris Yeltsin (left), US President Bill Clinton (center), Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma, and British Prime Minister John Major (right) at the ceremony marking Ukraine’s signing of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. Budapest, December 5, 1994
On October 31st, the much-awaited meeting in Budapest between the Russian and American Presidents was cancelled. The reason was nothing new: once again, Russia put forward unreasonable demands; that Ukraine cede territory, reduce its armed forces, and pledge never to join NATO. These terms rendered any further talks pointless.
Still, the choice of Budapest was peculiar: a city where, 31 years ago, Russia secured its first significant victory over Ukraine. On December 5, 1994, in the capital of Hungary, Ukraine’s second president surrendered the country’s entire nuclear arsenal to its new security guarantors: Boris Yeltsin of Russia, Bill Clinton of the United States, and John Major of the United Kingdom.
Understanding what happened in 1994 requires looking at the circumstances Ukraine found itself in following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Ukraine, which was the second-largest economy and military power in the USSR, inherited much of its nuclear arsenal. According to estimates by the US Department of Defense, this amounted to approximately 1,900 strategic nuclear warheads and another 2,500 tactical warheads.1 This meant that at the time of its declaration of independence in 1991, Ukraine possessed the third largest nuclear weapons stockpile in the world after the US and Russia.
For comparison, this was more than five times greater than the total nuclear potential of the rest of Europe (including France and the United Kingdom). In other words, Ukraine did not simply find itself among the nuclear powers; it was a key factor in the global strategic balance.
Between 1992 and 1994, a series of negotiations took place between Ukraine, Russia, the UK, and the US on the status of nuclear weapons, during which Ukraine decided to eliminate and transfer its nuclear weapons. This decision was driven by the course of Ukraine’s political transformation in the early 1990s. Ukraine chose a model of democratic development, integration into Western institutions, and compliance with global rules. In the post-Cold War optimism and belief in the power of international norms, Ukraine’s choice seemed a peace-enhancing development.
In return, Ukraine desired what nuclear weapons were created for—guarantees of security and inviolability of its borders. Such guarantees were provided by the US, the UK, and Russia under the Budapest Memorandum. They pledged to respect Ukraine’s territorial integrity, abstain from the use of force and economic pressure, and facilitate an international response in case of threats. The Budapest Memorandum became the basis for Ukraine’s decision to disarm.
The logic was simple and clear: Ukraine contributes to global security, and the world guarantees Ukraine its own. In fact, those were all the points of the memorandum: the inviolability of borders in exchange for support for global security. The fate of the weapons themselves was simple: transfer to Russia. The nuclear weapons were all dispatched, the last missile in 1996, and the means of transporting the weapons (strategic bombers) were either dismantled or also hauled to Russia.
A nuclear warhead is loaded from a railway car onto a truck during training exercises for specialized personnel on how to respond to possible accidents during the transport of nuclear materials. Near Kirovograd. December 1995.
Disarmament was implemented with the support of the United States through the Nunn-Lugar program. Ukraine received technical assistance for the dismantling of missile complexes, and part of the nuclear material was converted into fuel for atomic power stations.
The Budapest Memorandum never curtailed Ukraine’s sovereignty nor questioned its right to set its own foreign policy, including the possibility of joining military alliances. The memorandum did nothing more than reaffirm the sanctity of borders and prohibit the use of force or economic blackmail. Ukraine’s borders were not up for debate; they were internationally recognized and, in 2004, formally ratified by both parliaments through a separate agreement with Russia. At that point, Moscow had no territorial claims, not even on paper.
Despite the signed guarantees, the first signs of their degradation appeared as early as 2003, when Russia attempted to revise the borders by starting the construction of a dam in the direction of the Ukrainian island of Tuzla in the Kerch Strait. Ukraine regarded this as a direct challenge to its territorial integrity and deployed border forces and engineering units to strengthen its defenses. The crisis was resolved politically, but it was the first signal that the guarantor state was beginning to question the commitments it had made under the Budapest Memorandum. Even after the formal settlement and ratification of the bilateral border treaty in 2004, it became clear that Russia did not view the guarantees as a strategic obligation, but only as a temporary tool.
The real rupture in the security order came in 2014, when Russia brazenly annexed Crimea and unleashed armed aggression in Donbas. This was the first case since World War II in Europe when a major power, and at the same time a security guarantor, forcibly changed the borders of a neighboring state. All key provisions of the memorandum were violated: non-use of force, respect for territorial integrity, and renunciation of economic and political pressure. The international response included sanctions and diplomatic statements, but did not provide the level of protection that was guaranteed by the Budapest Memorandum.
The Budapest Memorandum’s collapse became undeniable in 2022, when Russia tore up its commitments and launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The attack by the guarantor state demonstrated that political guarantees without enforcement mechanisms and real security commitments are incapable of protecting a state that voluntarily renounced its nuclear arsenal for the sake of international stability. The failure of the Budapest Memorandum is a challenge not only to Ukraine but also to the global non-proliferation system and the international order.
- Strategic nuclear weapons are designed to destroy large targets, such as large command posts, industrial centers, military cities, etc. Tactical weapons have a shorter range and are designed to destroy small military bases, aerodromes, etc.
