Budapest Memorandum
The Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances comprises four substantially identical political agreements signed at the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe 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. The four memoranda were originally signed by four nuclear powers: Ukraine, Russia, the United States, and the United Kingdom. France and China gave individual assurances in separate documents.
The memoranda, signed in Patria Hall at the with U.S. Ambassador Donald M. Blinken amongst others in attendance, prohibited Russia, the United States, and the United Kingdom from threatening or using military force or economic coercion against Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan, "except in self-defence or otherwise in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations". As a result of the memorandum and other agreements, between 1993 and 1996, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine gave up their nuclear weapons. On 6 December the CSCE without mentioning the Budapest Memoranda per se published in the same conference hall the Budapest Summit Declaration and the Budapest Decisions, following which on 1 January 1995 it became known as the OSCE.
Russia violated the Budapest memorandum in 2014 with its annexation of Ukraine's Crimea and in 2022 by invading Ukraine. As a response, the United States, United Kingdom, and France provided Ukraine with financial and military assistance, and imposed economic sanctions on Russia, while ruling out "any direct interventions to avoid a direct confrontation with Russia".
Content
According to the three memoranda, Russia, the U.S., and the U.K. confirmed their recognition of Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine becoming parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and effectively removing all Soviet nuclear weapons from their soil, and that they agreed to the following:- Respect the signatory's independence and sovereignty in the existing borders.
- Refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of the signatories to the memorandum, and undertake that none of their weapons will ever be used against these countries, except in cases of self-defense or otherwise in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations.
- Refrain from economic coercion designed to subordinate to their own interest the exercise by Ukraine, the Republic of Belarus, and Kazakhstan of the rights inherent in its sovereignty and thus to secure advantages of any kind.
- Seek immediate Security Council action to provide assistance to the signatory if they "should become a victim of an act of aggression or an object of a threat of aggression in which nuclear weapons are used".
- Not to use nuclear weapons against any non-nuclear-weapon state party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, except in the case of an attack on themselves, their territories or dependent territories, their armed forces, or their allies, by such a state in association or alliance with a nuclear weapon state.
- Consult with one another if questions arise regarding those commitments.
History
Preliminaries
On 23 May 1992, Russia, the U.S., Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine signed the Lisbon Protocol to the START I treaty, ahead of ratifying the treaty later. The protocol committed Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine to adhere to the NPT as non-nuclear weapons states as soon as possible. However, the terms for the transfer of the nuclear warheads were not agreed, and some Ukrainian officials and parliamentarians started to discuss the possibility of retaining some of the modern Ukrainian built RT-23 missiles and Soviet built warheads.In 1993, two regiments of UR-100N missiles in Ukraine were withdrawn to storage because warhead components were past their operational life, and Ukraine's political leadership realised that Ukraine could not become a credible nuclear military force, as they could not maintain the warheads and ensure long-term nuclear safety. Later in 1993, the Ukrainian and Russian governments signed a series of bilateral agreements giving up Ukrainian claims to the nuclear weapons and the Black Sea Fleet, in return for $2.5 billion of gas and oil debt cancellation and future supplies of fuel for its nuclear power reactors. Ukraine agreed to ratify the START I and NPT treaties promptly. This caused severe public criticism, leading to the resignation of Ukrainian Defence Minister Morozov. On 18 November 1993, the Rada passed a motion agreeing to START I but renouncing the Lisbon Protocol, suggesting that Ukraine would only decommission 36% of missile launchers and 42% of the warheads on its territory, and demanded financial compensation for the tactical nuclear weapons removed in 1992. This caused U.S. diplomatic consternation, and the following day Ukrainian President Kravchuk said: "we must get rid of . This is my viewpoint from which I have not and will not deviate." He then brought a new proposal to the Rada.
File:President Clinton's News Conference with President Yeltsin.webm|thumb|Yeltsin and Clinton news conference, 14 January 1994
On 15 December 1993, U.S. Vice President Al Gore visited Moscow for a meeting. Following side discussions, a U.S. and Russian delegation, including U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense William J. Perry, flew to Ukraine to agree to the outlines of a trilateral agreement including U.S. assistance in dismantling the nuclear systems in Ukraine and compensation for the uranium in nuclear warheads. Participants were invited to Washington on 3–4 January to finalise the agreement. A Trilateral Statement with a detailed annex was agreed, based on the previously agreed terms but with detailed financial arrangements and a firm commitment to an early start to the transfer of at least 200 warheads to Russia and the production in Russia of nuclear reactor fuel for Ukraine. Warheads would be removed from all RT-23s within 10 months. However, Ukraine did not want a commitment to transfer all warheads by 1 June 1996 to be made public for domestic political reasons, and Russia did not want the financial compensation for uranium made public because they were concerned that Belarus and Kazakhstan would also demand this. It was decided to exclude these two matters from the published agreement, but cover them in private letters between the countries' presidents.
Another key point was that U.S. State Department lawyers made a distinction between "security guarantee" and "security assurance", referring to the security guarantees that were desired by Ukraine in exchange for non-proliferation. "Security guarantee" would have implied the use of military force in assisting its non-nuclear parties attacked by an aggressor, while "security assurance" would simply specify the non-violation of these parties' territorial integrity. In the end, a statement was read into the negotiation record that the lesser sense of the English word "assurance" would be the sole implied translation for all appearances of both terms in all three language versions of the statement. In the Ukrainian and Russian version of the document, the wording "security guarantees" was used though.
President Clinton made a courtesy stop at Kyiv on his way to Moscow for the Trilateral Statement signing, only to discover that Ukraine was having second thoughts about signing. Clinton told Kravchuk that not signing would risk major damage to U.S.–Ukraine relations. After some minor rewording, the Trilateral Statement was signed by the three presidents in Moscow in front of the media on 14 January 1994.
The Budapest Memoranda
The "Budapest Memorandum" is actually three documents signed individually on 5 December 1994 by the three leaders of the ex-Soviet nations, together with the guarantor nations: United States, United Kingdom and Russia. So, the UNTERM portal notes for one:
To distinguish this from the other two Budapest Memorandums of the same date, this one could be referred to as the Budapest Memorandum regarding Kazakhstan.
Sequels
After this was agreed, the U.S. used its Nunn–Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction programme to provide financial assistance over $300 million, and technical assistance in decommissioning the nuclear weapons and delivery systems, which took to 2008 to fully complete. The U.S. also doubled other economic aid to Ukraine to $310 million for 1994.During the Tuzla Island conflict in 2003, Ukraine decided not to invoke the Budapest Memorandum.
In 2009, Russia and the United States released a joint statement that the memorandum's security assurances would still be respected after the expiration of the START Treaty.