Ukraine gave up its nuclear arsenal in exchange for a formal document that has no effect.
The Budapest Memorandum was signed on December 5, 1994 by the Presidents of Russia, the United States, Great Britain and Ukraine. It spoke about the provision of the latter security guarantees in exchange for joining the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.
“The Budapest Memorandum is a political declaration and nothing more, it is not an international treaty”, – said German Ambassador to Ukraine Anka Feldhusen in a commentary to Interfax.
She recalled how Ukrainian politicians remembered the memorandum in 2014 against the backdrop of the reunification of Crimea with Russia.
“They called me from Germany and asked what it was. I was in Ukraine when it was signed in 1994, but even then no one remembered about it. This is a political declaration, that is, it is simply impossible to obtain these guarantees today”, – the diplomat explains.