Budapest Memorandum – Who Won? Not Ukraine

On December 5, in the year 1994, almost three years to the day after Ukrainians overwhelmingly ratified their country’s Declaration of Independence of August 24, 1991, the Ukrainian nation, which had never enjoyed genuine understanding and support in the face of adversity from allies and non-allies, was disarmed, bloodied and left to its own devices on the doorstep of its age-old enemy, Russia.

Weak and struggling to solidify its newly secured independence, Ukraine, the third largest nuclear power at the time, was faced with a predicament about how to ensure its independent longevity as the free-world, Russian and non-aligned vultures circled overhead. While rich in natural resources, Ukraine’s grandfathered Soviet nuclear arsenal, much of which it had developed and built, was its only ace in the hole. Many in Ukraine and the free world believed that its nuclear weapons even of dubious effectiveness, but like a loaded or unloaded pistol concealed in a coat pocket, could help Kyiv negotiate successfully with Moscow and Washington.

It is well know that Russia never favored an independent Ukraine and wanted to return it to its realm. Washington, at best a fair weather friend which if push came to shove would reluctantly support Kyiv’s independence, was interested in a non-nuclear Ukraine. As for its independence and security, a faux version of free Ukraine would be acceptable to Washington.

In order to assuage Ukraine’s concerns, the nuclear powers said they’d protect Ukraine from foreign aggression. Mind you, one of the guarantors was Ukraine’s primary oppressor.

But Ukraine ultimately gave in and signed what has come to be known as the Budapest Memorandum thereby surrendering its nuclear weapons to Moscow. Ukrainian patriots were stunned.

Three years ago, Euromaidan Press noted that almost immediately after signing the Memorandum on Security Assurances in Connection with Ukraine’s Accession to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons in Budapest, Hungary, on December 5, 1994, then-President of Ukraine Leonid Kuchma, of all people, commented, “If tomorrow, Russia goes into Crimea, no one will raise an eyebrow. Besides… promises, no one ever planned to give Ukraine any guarantees.”

The issue pertained to guarantees or assurances real or perceived in the memorandum.

First at the White House

Looking through my files of 26 years ago, I saw that what was written then has evolved into what we see happening in Ukraine today. Russia invaded and seized Crimea in 2014 and then launched a war in the Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts in eastern Ukraine – treaties and memoranda notwithstanding. Russia is waging a bloody war against Ukraine that has no end in sight. The goal? Re-subjugation of Ukraine. Yes, the free world raised its eyebrows – perhaps only one – and sent war materiel but the heavy lifting and bleeding on the ground was left to the Ukrainian troops and civilians. The West also seems ready to accept a permanent state of war in Europe, a war between Russia and Ukraine.

Let us recall that the signing of the nuclear emasculation agreement took place within the framework of the first historic, momentous state visit by a President of Ukraine to the White House. That was undoubtedly an historic event that took place a few days before pen was put to paper in the Hungarian capital. The visit was the bait that was dangled in front of Kyiv.

As an eye witness, I wrote afterward in ABN Correspondence: “Without a doubt and without exaggerations, the November 22 welcoming ceremony for President Leonid Kuchma and his wife, Liudmyla, was a sight to be seen. Ukrainian and American flags lined Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House and along the South Portico, awash in a classic autumnal Washingtonian eye-squinting sunshine. The Administration arranged for so many Ukrainian and American flags that miniature ones were available for the guests attending the international pageant.”

The massive throng watched as the Color Guard made up of Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines, as well as the Coast Guard, marched onto the White House grounds with everyone smartly holding the Old Glory and the not-yet nicknamed Ukrainian flag, their service colors and the flags of each state of the Union.

For Americans, Ukrainian Americans and Ukrainians, it was a proud moment, one overflowing with more than two centuries of the American experience. It was also one filled with the hope that such an extravaganza would soon be duplicated in Kyiv.

With the White House ceremonial guard intoning “Hail to the Chief,” President Clinton and Hillary Clinton emerged from their residence to greet the throng. Even before the First Couple was able to complete their perfunctory waves, the black limousine, bearing the Ukrainian First Couple pulled up in front of the Clintons.

The two Presidents walked up to the rostrum while the two First Ladies, attended by their aides, stood on the grass to their right. The Star Spangled Banner was first. With strained nerves anticipating the Ukrainian national anthem, the American anthem probably sounded as fast as the previous sentence was read.

A quick drum roll, the first volley from the howitzer and then came the opening sounds of the Ukrainian anthem Shche Ne Vmerla Ukrayina, echoing over Washington’s reflecting pools. Too many generations never dreamed of hearing such a sound or seeing such a vista, a few incredulously dreamed of the day but were not allowed to see it. As the 21st salvo penetrated the air, the last notes of the Ukrainian national anthem reverberated across the South Lawn. Truly inspiring. Regrettably more so than the subsequent welcoming remarks by the leaders of the United States of America and Ukraine. The commander of the honor guard then invited both Presidents to review the troops.

President Clinton, as the host, spoke first, congratulating his Ukrainian counterpart and Ukraine, for struggling, enduring, persevering, ultimately overcoming and striving to succeed. The speech was filled with gazes toward the future and appropriate accolades to the past. “Despite efforts to create an independent Ukraine, dictators, terrible famines and relentless oppression combined to deny your people the right to shape their fate. Despite these ordeals, the Ukrainian people have endured, preserving hope and their identity and contributing greatly to the glories of European civilization. Now, finally, Ukraine has reclaimed its independence and its place as a pivotal state in the new Europe.”

Noting that Ukraine’s contemporary independence is a “rebirth,” Clinton also reminded everyone that Ukraine was subjugated by “competing empires” and “tsars and commissars.”

Clinton also managed to score points by recognizing the Diaspora: “The flame of that commitment to freedom was kept burning during the Cold War by nearly a million Ukrainian Americans, some of whom are with us here today, who never forgot Ukraine and who are today contributing to its reawakening.”

Kuchma spoke shorter than Clinton and in political generalizations, devoid of the buzz words that his constituents in Ukraine and admirers in America have come to expect and listen for. Kuchma justifiably did praise America as a country that served as a model for Ukraine. “Today, they say Ukraine is a poor country. We are not a poor country, we are a young country and an experienced one. That is why we are ready to learn in the sphere of economics, politics, humanism, the best examples of other countries.”

Next came the press conference. Its theme as well as that of the entire state visit was Ukraine’s nuclear arsenal. Kyiv was accorded the high privilege of a state visit because the Verkhovna Rada had ratified a law allowing Ukraine to join the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. In the final analysis, the United States pledged to provide Ukraine $900 million in assistance — $200 million more than was expected a couple of days earlier. All Ukraine did to earn the money was to pledge to turn over its nuclear arsenal to Russia, a country which at the time had earned infamy by settling its own legislative disputes by blasting its parliament and bombing to hell Chechnya’s civilians and ragtag freedom fighters. No one considered this false logic dangerous.

Did Ukraine sell itself short? The mood in Ukraine was that in exchange for Kyiv’s signature on the NPTs dotted line, the West, the nuclear club and the United States would provide Ukraine with security guarantees, “guarantees.” The mood in Washington was: “security assurances.”

Standing next to the visibly fidgeting Kuchma, Clinton said Ukraine’s decision to sign the NPT “will permit the United States, Russia and the United Kingdom to extend formal security assurances to Ukraine.”

There is a world of difference between “guarantees” and “assurances.” Having failed to monitor the simultaneous translations, we can’t say what was the Ukrainian version of “guarantees” but it must have been inaccurate because no one picked up on it during the press conference. Not even Kuchma. Ukraine gave away its nuclear arsenal in exchange for assurances.

In the aftermath of the visit, the American press began to address this discrepancy, writing that at the CSCE meeting in Budapest, where Ukraine signed the NPT treaty, Kyiv would only receive assurances, not guarantees.

Former New York Times columnist Flora Lewis, writing in her syndicated column of December 12, said, “He (Kuchma) is trim, red-haired and straight-spoken, capable of sharp, no-nonsense argument which he used to drive a reluctant, divided parliament to overwhelming endorsement of the Nonproliferation Treaty renouncing nuclear arms.

“It was signed at the Budapest meeting, with President Clinton and President Yeltsin. But there is still ambiguity about the security ‘assurances’ (not guarantees) he was promised in return. That makes expansion of NATO a critical question.”

As for expanding NATO, there is also a difference in policies between the two Presidents. At the press conference, Clinton said he “would not say or do anything that would exclude the possibility of Ukrainian membership.” That’s a hopeful sign for Ukraine’s security interests. However, Kuchma negated that by stating, “The security of the European continent is a very important issue and it shouldn’t be solved by the revolutionary way but by the evolutionary method. It is not important who enters where, but it is very important that we do not have a new Berlin Wall in Europe.”

Talking with Ukrainian government insiders about Kuchma’s behavior during the press conference, we were told that he was upset because of the American press corps’ irrelevant questions. Indeed, of the six questions posed, three from each side, the American journalists did not address the issue at hand but asked Clinton about the Democratic debacle during November’s elections, Sen. Jesse Helms’ remark that Clinton should bring an extra bodyguard with himself when he visits North Carolina, and school prayer. It happened at previous joint presidential press conferences with President Kravchuk: at the first the issue was the riots in Los Angeles and at the second — WhiteWatergate. What happened this time was to be expected.

I received an explanation – perhaps partial – in New York.

At a meeting of the Deadline Club, the NYC chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, a week before the press conference, we begged the issue with a group of White House correspondents. Why does the White House press corps focus on the menial issue of the day rather than the big issue of the millennium: the third largest nuclear power agrees to give up its nuclear arsenal?

Gwen Ifill of NBC News both defended and criticized this behavior. Hill admitted that she and her colleagues are less interested in what is the theme of the press conference than what Bill Clinton is doing. If she covers the issue — nuclear weapons — and not the person of the President, whether he is up or down, and her competitive colleagues do, she explained, she’ll get in trouble with her boss. White House journalists are generalists, she said, who don’t “deviate from the story of the day or a few stories of the day.” It is a herd mentality that drives the journalists in the White House, she noted. Ifill added that people often ask her what Bill Clinton is really like rather than what he’s doing or why he’s doing it. “I feed into that,” she reluctantly admitted.

The Memorandum

Despite the local, regional or global issues related to nuclear non-proliferation and deterrence, what was and remains disturbing is the participants’ attitude toward Ukraine. The US, Russia and others treated Ukraine like a criminal, an outlaw, a pariah for stalling so long before the Verkhovna Rada acquiesced and signed the law authorizing accession to the NPT. They failed to acknowledge that in the fall of 1991, a couple of months after declaring its independence, Ukraine became the first nuclear country to freely announce that it is willing to eliminate its nuclear missiles and called on America and Russia to do so as well. Its offer was greeted with cold silence. Why? They didn’t know what to do with now independent Ukraine, situated on the border with Russia. Ukraine’s presence on the international scene would disrupt established foreign relations with the addition of a new player, one that is continually threatened by Moscow. This attitude is mimics Washington’s blasé standpoint regarding the Holodomor eight decades earlier.

The salient points of the memorandum expressed diplomatic courtesies which any civilized country without reservation extends to a neighbor. Hitler and Stalin did it. Yet despite this nicety, history, and Russian history specifically, is replete with examples of one country violating a neighboring country. The second point pledges that the participants won’t attack Ukraine, unless Ukraine attacks them. Was Russia, already then, planning to recoup its losses by forcing the former captives back into its prison nations?

Article three states that America, Russia and Great Britain will “refrain from economic coercion designed to subordinate to their own interest the exercise by Ukraine of the rights inherent in its sovereignty and thus to secure advantages of any kind.” Washington and London will probably adhere to this tenet, however, Russia, with its oil dominance, has been turning the spigot on and off and will do so again to ensure that Kyiv’s fuel check is in the mail as well as to implicitly and explicitly force Ukraine to heed its will. This enforcement – or protection payment – is perpetuated today.

In the next point, the three nuclear chaperones of Ukraine declare they will “seek immediate United Nations Security Council action to provide assistance to Ukraine, as a non-nuclear-weapon state party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, if Ukraine should become a victim of an act of aggression or an object of a threat of aggression in which nuclear weapons are used.” This falls into the rubric of expedient global forgetfulness. And in the fifth point they “reaffirm, in the case of Ukraine, their commitment 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.”

This is the closest — though pretty distant — that the nuclear club came to providing security guarantees to Ukraine, without promising anything. Furthermore, the transformation of the concrete “guarantee” to the soft “assurance,” as was expected since the Kuchma-Clinton summit in Washington, is not even reflected in this language.

Article six tries to offer solace to Ukrainian s everywhere — “Ukraine, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United States of America will consult in the event a situation arises which raises a question concerning these commitments.” — while the body count then and today grows. The expectations of this or the previous government of Ukraine, the Verkhovna Rada, the people of Ukraine and the Diaspora were not fulfilled by this memorandum. Ukraine’s accession to the NPT brings to mind the scene from the film “Godfather,” in which Don Corleone memorably remarks to a reluctant business associate that if his signature doesn’t appear on the contract then his brains surely will. The Washington summit offered hope that finally Ukraine was being accepted as an equal partner by the United States and the international community. Unfortunately, genuine examples of an equitable acceptance that would justify such a hope have not yet emerged. Ukraine is still being treated as a second-class member of the international community, somewhere, for example, in front of Iran and Iraq but far behind Israel.

When Ukraine, whose predicament is not that much different than the Jewish state’s, moves closer to Israel’s level of acceptance by Washington, then we will have tangible proof that the world respects Ukraine.

The Drunk Holding Nuclear Bomb

At that time, in addition to the obvious fear that Russia would inherit all of Ukraine’s nuclear weapons and then ride herd on independent Ukraine, another visible concern dealt with who had his finger on the nuclear button? I observed then:

A drunkard, alcoholic, sot, drunk, tippler, toper, boozehound, wino, barfly, lush, sponge, soak, rummy, inebriate, dipsomaniac, imbiber, boozer. In other words, Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin, president of the Russian Federation.

After three-and-a-half years of his presidency the world is beginning to pay attention to Yeltsin’s behavior. What was once a public secret, whispered about at cocktail parties or in the corridors outside press rooms, has become public knowledge? Yeltsin, the leader of America’s partner in the new world order, reaches for vodka more often than he would like us to know.

The meeting of the Commonwealth of Independent States in Almaty, Kazakhstan, on February 10, would not have received the American network television attention it did had it not been for the Russian president virtually falling over himself. Associated Press Television caught his command performance and while it was not shown in Russia, ABC’s World News Tonight with Peter Jennings did.

On the few occasions that reporters were allowed to be in his presence during the summit, they reported that Yeltsin’s speech was slurred and he displayed difficulty moving. He declined to attend the final press conference in the Kazakh capital. Earlier, an aid had to carry him up a flight of stairs to the meeting room. Yeltsin arrived by plane on Thursday evening, following a flight which boasted of a birthday party for his chief of staff. Agence France Presse said he almost stumbled down the stairs of his aircraft. Some rip-roaring party. Nursultan Nazarbayev, the Kazakh president, had to help him to his car. The traditional airport press conference was canceled.

For the record, his behavior in Almaty was the third time in six months that Yeltsin’s public drunkenness caught the attention of the world. Last August, he repeatedly upset protocol during a visit to Berlin to mark the departure of Russian troops from Germany by making unscheduled speeches and once even grabbing a conductor’s baton to conduct the orchestra himself as he twirled and bounced to the music. Apparently the contraction of Russia’s military might was reason enough for the Russian chief executive to get loaded.

A month later, returning from the United States, Yeltsin remained on his plane during a stopover in Shannon, Ireland, leaving the Irish Prime Minister Albert Reynolds waiting on the tarmac. His staff offered explanations ranging from he was asleep to he wasn’t feeling well. They probably were not lying because hangovers do have that effect on people.

To these examples of Yeltsin’s loss of control over himself I can add the story told to me by staffers at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs in Kyiv. During one meeting between the Russian president and former President Leonid Kravchuk, a drunken Yeltsin, attempting to bear hug his Ukrainian counterpart, fell on top of him.

Terrifying, isn’t it?

The New York Times, in an editorial on February 14, while desperately holding out hope that everyone is sober in the Kremlin, wrote that the transition from a heroic Yeltsin standing on top of a tank to undercut the putsch of August 1991 to today’s drunken bumpkin is “shocking and puzzling.”

“After years of dodging questions about his health and his drinking, Mr. Yeltsin owes his country and the world a candid accounting. The performance in Almaty moves the issue beyond the discreet conversation of diplomats, because Mr. Yeltsin’s ability to govern Russia is now in question,” The New York Times stated. “Whatever the problem, or combination of problems, Mr. Yeltsin cannot expect to retain authority when he seems incapacitated and offers no explanation.”

“If Mr. Yeltsin remains committed to untangling Russia from his authoritarian past, he and his doctors must quickly come clean.” Yeltsin’s drinking binge also comes at bad time for him and Russia what with Moscow’s laying waste the Chechen capital of Grozny. “But his unsteady performance in Almaty made a particularly bad impression at a time when Russian troops are embroiled in a conflict in the Republic of Chechnya and Russian pro-democrats say Yeltsin had fallen under the influence of hardliners feeding him selective information on the brutal two-month war,” wrote Boris Bachorz of the Agence France Presse.

What has the Budapest Memorandum wrought? Actually not much for Ukraine and the free world. As for Russia, it inherited Ukraine’s nuclear arsenal thereby expanding its own. Simultaneously, Russia’s belligerent behavior toward Ukraine and the other x-captive nations hasn’t changed.

And the nuclear club, fearing instability in Ukraine, forced Kyiv to turn over its nuclear arsenal to Yeltsin’s Russia. We can surely sleep securely, knowing that a drunk has his finger on the nuclear button.

Which brings us to the following dilemma. What is better, a drunk with his finger on the nuclear button or, in the eventuality that a democratic reformer (like Yavlinsky or Gaidar) does not succeed Yeltsin, an imperialistic extremist (such as Rutskoi or Zhirinovsky) with his finger on the button? Unfortunately, this is the historical tragedy that is called Russia.

Russia then was led by a drunkard. Today, it is led by a sober tyrant, Putin, who perpetuates Russia’s national mission of aggression against Ukraine and the other former captive nations. It doesn’t matter who rules in the Kremlin because its imperial, aggressive policy prevails. Kuchma oddly foresaw that Russia would invade and seize Crimea and no one would raise an eyebrow.

Is the world and Ukraine safer two dozen years hence because of the Budapest Memorandum? They don’t seem to be. Not that nuclear non-proliferation and deterrence aren’t important but because Russia skews everything in its favor. Did the Budapest Memorandum accomplish anything? Not really. Does Ukraine have the undivided favor and support of Washington like Israel does? No, it doesn’t. To be fair, the United States does announce sanctions against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine and Congress does authorize defensive and even lethal weapons to help Ukraine fight against Russian invaders. But Moscow seems to brush this off rebuke.

Is Ukraine closer to joining NATO or acceding to the European Union? No, but the excuses, explanations and words of encouragement are louder. Stories abound of soldiers from NATO countries training Ukrainian soldiers. But this begs the question: What can they teach Ukrainian soldiers when Ukrainian soldiers are the only ones in the world that are successfully engaged in combat with the world’s second mightiest armed force?

Nonetheless, the nuclear powers are probably patting themselves on their backs for concluding the Budapest Memorandum, the Russian war continues and Ukrainian soldiers and civilians are being killed without nuclear weapons, as Russia spreads war, terror and lies about truces at the negotiation table.

Indeed, nothing has changed.