Former US President Bill Clinton has expressed his regret for his role in a 1994 agreement that resulted in Ukraine giving up its nuclear weapons. The agreement, known as the Budapest Memorandum, was signed by Clinton, former Russian President Boris Yeltsin, and former Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk. It offered security assurances to Ukraine and other former Soviet republics in exchange for their disarmament.
Clinton said that he felt a “personal stake” in Ukraine’s current situation, as it faces a war with Russia that started in 2014 and escalated in 2022. He said that he believed that Russia would not have invaded Ukraine if it still had its nuclear weapons.
“I knew that President Putin did not support the agreement President Yeltsin made never to interfere with Ukraine’s territorial boundaries. An agreement he made because he wanted Ukraine to give up their nuclear weapons,” Clinton said in an interview with Irish news service RTÉ released on Tuesday.
“They were afraid to give them up because they thought that’s the only thing that protected them from an expansionist Russia. And I feel terrible about it because Ukraine is a very important country. And I feel a personal stake because I got them to agree to give up their nuclear weapons. And none of them believe that Russia would have pulled this stunt if Ukraine still had their weapons,” he added.
Ukraine inherited about 1,900 nuclear warheads after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Clinton offered Kravchuk $700 million and “strong security assurances” for the disarmament of the nuclear weapons.
However, Russia violated its promise to respect Ukraine’s sovereignty and borders when it annexed Crimea in 2014 and supported separatists in eastern Ukraine. In February 2022, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, sparking a humanitarian crisis and a diplomatic standoff with the West.
Clinton said that the US and Europe should continue to support Ukraine and impose sanctions on Russia. He also said that it should be up to Ukraine to decide when and if to pursue a peace agreement with Russia.
“I think what Mr. Putin did was very wrong and I believe Europe and the United States should continue to support Ukraine,” Clinton said. “There may come a time when the Ukrainian government believes they can think of a peace agreement they can live with, but I don’t think the rest of us should cut and run on them,” he added.
Russia has previously threatened to use nuclear weapons if the West intervenes militarily in Ukraine. Last week, Putin announced a plan to station tactical nuclear weapons in neighboring Belarus, one of Russia’s few allies in Europe.