Did Ukraine OWN the nukes it had? Could it operate them? In October of 2023, The National Interest wrote:
“”…never-before-released archival evidence dating back 30 years proves [the USA] share blame for the current crisis. The documents show conclusively how two American administrations, senior Pentagon leadership, and NATO, all pressured Ukraine into giving up its only deterrent against Russian aggression—nuclear weapons—despite the credible risk of Russian invasion.
With this information coming to light as Putin himself threatens to deploy nuclear weapons on the battlefield, how willing might Ukraine skeptics in the House GOP be to listen to the foreign policy establishment urging more money and arms for ill-defined objectives?
In 1994, American officials browbeat Ukraine’s newly independent leaders into giving up the nuclear weapons they inherited from the Soviet Union—weapons which could have staved off future aggression from Moscow—in exchange for nebulous “security assurances,” declared as part of the so-called Budapest Memorandum.
These assurances ultimately proved meaningless, as Ukraine’s plight shows today. Yet, the Budapest Memorandum remains settled history for many in the foreign policy establishment: something that could not have unfolded any other way.
Drawn from archives in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and the United Nations, new never-before-published evidence flatly contradicts this idea. These documents are the grist of exhaustive searches and inquiries to the National Security Archive, two presidential libraries, and the Library of Congress.
These records cut sharply against the rationale for this historical resignation: that Ukraine was incapable of the technical means of operating nuclear weapons and that such weapons wouldn’t do much for its security even if it could. Moreover, their contents undermine the general belief that the effort—even if ultimately in error—was at least dedicated to the noble goal of reducing overall global stockpiles of nuclear weapons.
On the contrary, the evidence reveals President Bill Clinton’s future CIA director concluding that Ukraine did have the means to operate an arsenal. The unearthed papers show the USSR’s last foreign minister, Eduard Shevardnadze, confirming that “just one nuclear missile” in Ukrainian hands would have been enough to safeguard its independence so far as Russian strategic planning was concerned. They also show top American officials—from both parties—fretting over Russia’s belligerent, irredentist behavior during the negotiations, including repeated concerns about a potential future Russian invasion of Ukraine even as they chided “whiners” in Kyiv for expressing the same anxieties.
The same “settled history” crowd contends the Budapest Agreement—even if ultimately in error—was at least dedicated to the noble goal of reducing overall global stockpiles of nuclear weapons. We now know it was nothing of the sort.
Historical materials also illuminate how American officials blocked serious attempts by Kyiv to trade its inherited arsenal for genuine security guarantees—even going so far as to lobby Europeans to keep Ukraine out of non-NATO security arrangements. Perhaps this was because, as the record now reveals, they were also backchanneling to Moscow respect for Russia’s “vital interests in its near abroad” and a willingness to “help in a variety of ways.”
Among the ways cited? The American-Russian-Ukrainian accord that preceded the high-level public declarations in the Budapest Memorandum.
Rather than a serious effort at global nuclear arms control, the actual imperative seems to have been a desire on the part of American officials to coax Russia into joining the Western democratic world. The Budapest Agreement, therefore, amounted to a diplomatic shell game—one where weapons were transferred from a weaker state to a stronger one with imperial pretensions, largely to soothe Russian insecurities about achieving “parity” in its nuclear stockpile vis-à-vis the United States.
That was an understandable and even laudable aim. Yet, it resulted in a doomed policy that required assuaging Russia at almost any cost, ignoring the Kremlin’s own words and actions, and ultimately leaving Ukraine to the perilous fate borne out today.
After all, the only reason Ukraine agreed to surrender its weapons is because Western powers linked that decision to “security assurances” that proved hollow. According to Yuri Kostenko, Kyiv’s former head envoy for disarmament, the outcome deprived his country of “the most powerful method of protecting the state.” It received nothing in return—except, perhaps, its worst fears fulfilled. Now, with forfeited Ukrainian missiles raining down on Ukrainian cities, it is time for Western policymakers to confront the past—their past—with the seriousness it deserves…
Though most of their personal papers on the subject remain classified, a memo to the National Security Advisor from March 1992 demonstrated that these disputes did not disappear. National Security Council staffer David Gompert titled it “Why We Must be Adamant about De-nuclearizing Ukraine.” He noted three major counterarguments:
Ukrainian nuclear weapons will not threaten the U.S. as Russian nuclear weapons do, for the simple reason that Ukraine, unlike Russia, is not a serious potential adversary. It might even prove advantageous to us to see Russian power checked—and Russian nuclear weapons deterred—by a Ukraine with a minimal deterrent. In any case, we hurt ourselves with the Ukrainians by insisting that they be stripped of nuclear weapons while we legitimize those of their powerful neighbor.
Gompert dismissed these objections, and the Bush administration continued on its path. The document, however, bears witness to the persistent debate that unfolded within the administration.
While Ukraine preferred to develop its own conventional military means to deter Moscow, it simply lacked the resources to do so. Its inherited nuclear weapons became a chit to trade for an ironclad security guarantee from the West—ideally something commensurate to NATO’s Article V umbrella…
Six days after President Clinton raised his hand from the Bible, he was on the phone with then-Ukrainian president Leonid Kravchuk, insisting on ratification of START and the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. While Clinton told Kravchuk that he intended to “extend strong security assurances upon your ratification,” the menu of options to hasten Ukraine’s denuclearization actually remained largely set from the beginning. Kyiv needed to ratify these treaties (and related addenda) and agree to transfer all the nuclear warheads on its territory to Russia.
In return, Ukraine would receive “security assurances,” restatements of existing commitments under the United Nations and similar institutions where Russia pledged it would not violate Ukrainian borders. In essence, nice words that lacked real teeth. Limited sweeteners were available: Moscow could be persuaded to compensate Kyiv fully for highly enriched uranium, for instance, and Washington could provide technical assistance and other aid. But the issue of defending Ukraine’s territorial integrity was never truly up for debate…
A few months later, in April 1993, Kravchuk confided to then-Georgian president Eduard Shevardnadze his “main headache” that “Moscow and the U.S. together have been twisting my arms painfully” in “demanding [the] transfer [of Ukraine’s nuclear weapons] to the Russian Federation.”
“I would understand Russia’s nastiness,” Kravchuk lamented, “But Americans are even worse—they do not listen to our arguments.”
Shevardnadze remarked to his fellow post-Soviet leader:
[The Americans] do not know about our terrible, rough relations with the Russian empire [and] the USSR. Without that knowledge, building predictable and trustworthy relations with ‘democratic Yeltsin and Russia’ would be very difficult, whom [the Americans] currently call ‘Russian democrats’…I know many of them, talked to them a lot. They are still sick with imperial infection.
He went on, referring to his previous job—as Soviet foreign minister:
Being a member of the Politburo I had access to many confidential and top-secret documents—secret reports, notes, different non-papers elaborated in different Soviet structures—the Central Committee offices, KGB, Military Intelligence, think tanks and so forth. Maybe you too know about them. But my access was much deeper and wider…I can say that the documents I have read were just horrible and frightening: about the different scenarios of relations of the Center [Moscow] with the Soviet republics directed toward ‘different kinds of emergencies.’ They included the partition of those republics, expelling their populations to different parts of Siberia and the Soviet Far East—indeed some remote places. To accomplish those goals, they will use military force.
“All those plans are not archival ones!” he continued. “They are fully intact to be used if Moscow makes that decision.”
Shevardnadze implored Kravchuk to “negotiate so as not to undermine your independence and your security.” After all, he observed, “if Ukraine succeeds in keeping at least one nuclear missile as a deterrent to defend itself, it will succeed in safeguarding its independence and sovereignty from those mad men in the Kremlin.”
“Just one nuclear missile.” It was a prophetic observation from a man who understood the inner workings of the Kremlin better than almost anyone else. Shevardnadze told Kravchuk that Russia’s new leaders “understand only power, they are afraid of it.” Nonetheless, forces beyond Kyiv’s control would continue to agitate fiercely against its primary means of deterrence. Moreover, it wasn’t as if they did not have a sense of the Russian threat themselves—of the throughline of deceit that Shevardnadze had so artfully drawn between the Soviet leadership and its Russian successors…
Apparently, doubt crept in six days later when Talbott asked Christopher rhetorically: “Do we have good answers to questions about what we’ll do if reality refuses to follow the script we’re writing for it?”
“What if,” he wondered, “Russia invades Ukraine?”
This was another important question, but one that apparently did not stop the administration from speeding ahead with the removal of a potentially formidable means of deterring Russian aggression. Indeed, after the Trilateral Agreement was signed, American officials resisted allowing serious guarantees of Ukraine’s territorial integrity. They stymied Kyiv’s overtures to regional organizations beyond NATO…
As Kuchma deposited the treaty in Budapest weeks later, as the memorandum required, French President Francois Mitterrand remarked to him, “young man, you will be tricked, one way or the other.” “Don’t believe them,” he admonished, “they will cheat you.”
Two weeks after Yeltsin left the stage in Budapest, where he declared a “cold peace,” the celebrated reformer tested the Topol-M, a missile lavishly redesigned in 1992, capable of striking American soil—later wielded as evidence Russia could overcome Western defenses. On New Year’s Eve, he launched an invasion in Chechnya that killed tens of thousands, justifying delays in Russia’s domestic elections.
Rarely does a commander-in-chief openly disavow a prior foreign policy decision. But Bill Clinton repeatedly did so last spring. Referring to the Budapest Memorandum, Clinton stated his regret for insisting Ukraine “agree to give up [its] nuclear weapons.” He also admitted that the story of the agreement was hardly the open-and-shut case of win-win nonproliferation that advocates have presented. “None of them believe that Russia would have pulled this stunt if Ukraine still had their weapons,” Clinton said, referring to the ongoing full-scale invasion.” (Deceit, Dread, and Disbelief: The Story of How Ukraine Lost Its Nuclear Arsenal)
Muscovite attacks on Kyiv date back several hundred years. ‘Gardariki, Ukraine‘ ebook shows how they started and why “Russia” has no relation to Rus.
