Special Presidential Envoy for Special Missions of the United States Richard Grenell wrote an X post saying that USSR’s dissolution, Ukraine gave away Russia’s “leftovers” of nuclear weapons under the Budapest memorandum. The statement is manipulative in several aspects.
What happened?
On March 25, Richard Grenell wrote (archive) on X:
Let’s be clear about the Budapest Memorandum: the nukes were Russia’s and were leftovers. Ukraine gave the nukes back to Russia. They weren’t Ukraine’s. This is an uncomfortable fact.
Analysis
Experts from many countries within the Soviet Union were participating in the development, manufacturing, and maintenance of nuclear weapons when the Union existed.
The number of Ukrainian strategic enterprises engaged into the Soviet military-industrial complex and participating in the nuclear program was huge, e.g. “Autogenmash” factory in Odesa, “Khartron” and Instrument-Making Plant in Kharkiv, Kyiv radio manufacturing plant, “Arsenal” plant in Kyiv, and so on.
At the time of the Soviet Union’s dissolution, 3594 enterprises in Ukraine were a part of the Soviet military industrial complex — nearly 3 million people worked there. Moreover, since 1951, Ukraine has been working (1, 2) to extract and process uranium ore into uranium concentrate.
So, nuclear weapons that have been developed or stores on the territories of Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Russia after the dissolution of Soviet Union belonged to the former Soviet Union — but not Russia.
Then, the Budapest Memorandum Grenell refers to doesn’t include any mention of the agreements about the transfer of Ukraine’s nuclear weapons to Russia or other countries. This international agreement is dedicated to Ukraine getting safety guarantees after becoming a non-nuclear-armed state.
Nuclear disarmament of Ukraine began in 1991 after Ukraine gained independence. The process was followed by various diplomatic events and international agreements, and lasted for several years.
In October 1991, Ukraine adopted a statement on the country’s non-nuclear state status, which said that Ukraine will continue to comply with the policy directed at complete obliteration of nuclear weapons and their components based on its territory.
The statement says that nuclear weapons of the former Soviet Union controlled by the corresponding structures are located on Ukraine’s territory.
At the end of December of the same year, Ukraine signed the Agreement on Strategic Forces (archive) with the Commonwealth of Independent States between countries of the former USSR. The agreement says that the nuclear weapons located on the territory of Ukraine are subject to complete destruction until the end of 1994 and that tactical nuclear weapons in particular should be destroyed by July 1, 1992. In May 1992, all tactical nuclear weapons were transferred from Ukraine to Russian manufacturing facilities to be disassembled.
Another important stage of Ukraine’s nuclear disarmament is signing, on May 23, 1992, the Lisbon Protocol (archive) to support the 1991 Agreement (that still existed back then) between the USSR and the USA. The statement says that the countries of the former Soviet Union, where the nuclear weapons have been located — Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Ukraine — as countries-successors to the former Soviet Union, are obligated to follow this agreement and reduce and limit the number of strategic offensive weapons in their arsenals. The countries (apart from Russia) confirmed their intentions to, in the shortest time, join the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, which aimed to encourage the goal of nuclear disarmament.
In autumn of 1993, Ukraine and Russia signed several agreements (so-called Massandra Accords — 1, 2) to regulate exploitation, transference, and utilization of nuclear weapons located on the territory of Ukraine. According to these agreements, Russia took up the responsibility for utilization of all nuclear weapons.
On November 1994, Ukraine joined (archive) the international Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. It was after that, in December 1994, with a goal of getting Ukraine security guaranties because of the country ratifying the Treaty and becoming a non-nuclear state, Ukraine, Russia, the UK, and the USA signed Budapest Memorandum, or “Memorandum on security assurances in connection with Ukraine’s accession to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.”
According to the Memorandum, Russia, along with the US and the UK, took up the obligations not only to respect the independence, sovereignty, and state borders of Ukraine, but also refrained from “economic coercion,” threatening force, or using force against Ukraine’s territorial integrity or political independence. The Memorandum also guaranteed that participant countries would not use their weapons against Ukraine except for cases of self-defense.
In the string of agreements towards nuclear disarmament there’s also a Three-sided statement (archive) that the USA, Ukraine, and Russia signed in January 1994 about the transportation of nuclear weapons from Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Belarus to Russia to be disassembled.
Ukraine, according to the statement, had to ensure the destruction of all nuclear weapons, including strategic offensive weapons, located on its territory during a seven-year period. The term for the deactivation of missiles RS-22 (SS-22) (РС-22 (СС-24)) on the territory of Ukraine was set at 10 months since the statement was signed.
So: Ukraine really transferred Russia a part of its nuclear weapons within the program of nuclear disarmament, but these weapons were gained by the former USSR.
The Budapest Memorandum is one of the international agreements signed within Ukraine’s nuclear disarmament, but it doesn’t regulate the conditions of nuclear weapons’ transfer.
The memorandum was signed to provide Ukraine with “security guarantees” protecting from economic coercion or military aggression against Ukraine from the UK, USA, and Russia.
It’s a memorandum that Russia violated with the occupation of Crimea, and has been violating for 11 years already.
So, Soviet nuclear arms weren’t Russian, and Ukraine didn’t “give them back” under the Budapest Memorandum.
Conclusion: Manipulation
Author: Anna Ormanzhy
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