ASSURANCES FOR UKRAINE

Before agreeing to give up this nuclear arsenal, Kyiv sought three assurances. First, it wanted compensation for the value of the highly-enriched uranium in the nuclear warheads, which could be blended down for use as fuel for nuclear reactors. Russia agreed to provide that.

Second, eliminating ICBMs, ICBM silos, and bombers did not come cheaply. With its economy rapidly contracting, the Ukrainian government could not afford the costs. The United States agreed to cover those costs with Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction assistance.

Third, Ukraine wanted guarantees or assurances of its security once it got rid of the nuclear arms. The Budapest Memorandum provided security assurances.Unfortunately, Russia has broken virtually all the commitments it undertook in that document. It used military force to seize, and then illegally annex, Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula in early 2014. Russian and Russian proxy forces have waged war for more than five years in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donbas, claiming more than 13,000 lives and driving some two million people from their homes.

Some have argued that, since the United States did not invade Ukraine, it abided by its Budapest Memorandum commitments. True, in a narrow sense. However, when negotiating the security assurances, U.S. officials told their Ukrainian counterparts that, were Russia to violate them, the United States would take a strong interest and respond.

Washington did not promise unlimited support. The Budapest Memorandum contains security “assurances,” not “guarantees.” Guarantees would have implied a commitment of American military force, which NATO members have. U.S. officials made clear that was not on offer. Hence, assurances.

Beyond that, U.S. and Ukrainian officials did not discuss in detail how Washington might respond in the event of a Russian violation. That owed in part to then-Russian President Boris Yeltsin. He had his flaws, but he insisted that there be no revision of the boundaries separating the states that emerged from the Soviet collapse. Yeltsin respected Ukraine’s independence and territorial integrity. Vladimir Putin does not.