Budapest Memorandum of 1994

The Budapest Memorandum Ukraine, Great Britain, Russia and the United States signed on December 5, 1994. The document established security guarantees in connection with Ukraine's accession to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. In 1996, this accession took place.

Basic Provisions

The text of the 1994 Budapest Memorandum provided for Ukraine's obligation to remove all nuclear weapons from its territory on time. In turn, the Russian Federation, the United States and Great Britain pledged:

• Respect the sovereignty, existing borders and independence of Ukraine in accordance with the OSCE Final Act.
• Do not use any weapons against political independence, territorial integrity of Ukraine, unless for purposes of self-defense and in other cases in accordance with the UN Charter.
• To abstain from economic coercion, which is aimed at subordinating Ukraine's exercise of the inherent sovereignty of its rights to its own interests and, at the expense of it, to secure some advantages.
• To demand immediate action from the UN Security Council if Ukraine, as a party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, becomes the target of a threat or a victim of aggression using nuclear weapons.
• Do not use nuclear weapons against Ukraine, except in cases of attack by this country on the states bound by the memorandum, their territory and their allies.
• Carry out counseling if there are any disputable situations relating to the above obligations.

China and France

At the time when the Budapest Memorandum was signed, two more nuclear powers - France and China - were full participants in the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. However, they did not sign under the text of the document, but spoke about guarantees by issuing relevant statements. Their difference was that there was no point on compulsory counseling in case of ambiguous situations.

Legal Status

At the present time, disputes about whether the document is legally binding for the parties do not subside. As of 2014, the Budapest Memorandum has not been ratified. As Vladimir Ryabtsev says, the first secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, who worked in this position in 1994-1995. And participated in the preparation of the document, when signing a speech on its ratification in the states that are parties, was not. Then, according to Ryabtsev, there was an understanding that the Budapest Memorandum, the text of which was adopted by the participating countries, is mandatory for steady execution.

Ryabtsev also expressed the opinion that the Russian Federation in 2003, when there was a conflict around the island of Tuza, showed the opposite position on the importance and obligation of the document signed in Hungary. The former first secretary of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said that in 2010 he finally realized that the Budapest Memorandum of 1994 was not an international legally binding document because the discussions held within the framework of the Review Conference had clearly demonstrated the fact that it was necessary to fulfill only the treaty that was ratified by the state . However, Vladimir Ryabtsev does not agree with the currently prevailing classification of the Memorandum as a document expressing the obligations of the parties, but considers it an interstate agreement that clearly establishes the fulfillment of the prescribed provisions.

The view of other political figures

Vladimir Gorbulin, former secretary of the Security Council of Ukraine, and Alexander Litvinenko, doctor of political science, said in September 2009 that Ukraine should convene an international conference in the course of which to prepare a new treaty on security assurances that would replace the Budapest memorandum. To participate in the conference it was suggested to involve the states that guaranteed in 1994 the security of Ukraine, as well as other major geopolitical players.

Crimean crisis and compliance with the Memorandum

President Vladimir Putin on the background of the events in the Crimea on March 1, 2014 received permission from the Federation Council to use the Russian Armed Forces on the territory of the Ukrainian state until the socio-political situation in that country is normalized. Such measures were conditioned, in Putin's words, by the extraordinary situation in Ukraine that threatens the lives of our compatriots, and also by the fact that in accordance with the international treaty in the territory of the Ukrainian state the personnel of the military contingent of the RF Armed Forces are stationed. Officially, no one announced the entry of troops, but there were numerous cases of people seizing unidentified military facilities of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. According to the Ukrainian authorities, these were Russian servicemen.

Putin's statements

The Russian president initially denied that our soldiers participated in the Crimean crisis. However, after the entry of Crimea into the Russian Federation, Putin confirmed that Russian servicemen supported the self-defense forces of the peninsula during the referendum. Such actions, according to the president, have been undertaken with the purpose of providing conditions for free expression of will of Crimeans and preservation of peaceful situation in Crimea . Later, Vladimir Putin said that Russia had never concealed the fact of using its troops to block the military units of Ukrainians.

Budapest Memorandum through the eyes of the Russian authorities

Our country officially rejects all charges of violating the 1994 agreements and in general their applicability to the situation in the Crimea. On March 4, 2014, the Russian president expressed the opinion that, since a revolution took place in Ukraine, it can be considered that a new state was formed on its territory, and Russia did not sign any binding documents with respect to it.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on April 1 issued a statement that the Russian Federation had never guaranteed that it would compel part of Ukraine against the will of local residents to remain in its composition, and the Budapest Memorandum of 1994 on the circumstances that resulted from the socio-economic and domestic political factors does not apply . To such factors, the Russian Foreign Ministry referred the events that took place in the Crimea.

The position of the Russian Federation on the merits of the matter is as follows: The Budapest Memorandum in its conception has only the obligation not to threaten the use of nuclear weapons and not to apply it against non-nuclear states, which is Ukraine. This commitment is fully implemented by Russia, and it is not violated in any way.

The position of the Ukrainian authorities

The Ukrainian side believes that the actions of the Russian Federation in the Crimea, including the entry of the peninsula into Russia, violate the 1994 Budapest Memorandum. On March 21, 2014 the Verkhovna Rada adopted the Declaration on the struggle for the liberation of Ukraine and stated in it that the Russian Federation not only violated the current legislation of a sovereign Ukrainian state, but also ignored the norms of international law, which are enshrined in the UN Charter.

On March 27, 2014, Andrey Deschitsa, Acting Minister for Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, said at a meeting of the UN General Assembly that the integral part of the Ukrainian state, after a two-week military occupation, was forcibly annexed by a country that had previously pledged to guarantee the sovereignty, independence and integrity of Ukraine in accordance with Budapest Memorandum. Dyshchitsa asked the UN General Assembly to support the resolution on the territorial integrity of Ukraine, which would announce a referendum that was held in the Crimea, which has no legal force.

Finally

On December 5, 2014, on the twentieth anniversary of the Budapest Memorandum, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, Prime Minister of Ukraine, once again called on the parties to the agreement to take joint decisive action to compel Russia to fulfill its obligations. In his turn, Sergey Lavrov, the RF foreign minister, said that the Memorandum did not contain an obligation to recognize the coup d'état in Ukraine. And on December 6, 2014, members of the Crimean Initiative group stated that Ukraine had violated the provisions of the Budapest Memorandum, since at the time of its signing the sovereignty of this country did not extend to the Republic of Crimea, and in general the peninsula was illegally included in the Ukrainian state for many years.

Apparently, the disputes over the status of the document signed on December 5, 1994 do not cease to this day. We can only follow the development of events.