Former US President Bill Clinton regrets his role in the 1994 Budapest Memorandum. declared in an interview with Irish broadcaster RTÉ. According to the agreement, Ukraine renounced nuclear weapons that remained on its territory after the collapse of the USSR, and Russia, the United States and Great Britain pledged to respect its sovereignty and territorial integrity. .
According to Clinton, then-Russian President Boris Yeltsin signed the memorandum because he wanted Ukraine to renounce nuclear weapons. The current Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, violated the obligation not to violate Ukrainian borders, believes the former American president.
“When it suited him, President Putin raped her and took Crimea first. And I feel bad about it because Ukraine is a very important country,” Clinton said.
He argues that the Ukrainians did not want to give up nuclear weapons because they believed it was the only defense “against an expansionist Russia”. The American politician believes that Russia would not have launched a military operation in Ukraine if Kiev had a nuclear deterrent.
“I personally feel guilty because I persuaded them (Ukraine) to agree to give up their nuclear weapons. And none of them think Russia would pull off this trick if Ukraine still had such weapons,” Clinton said.
He also expressed the view that the West should continue to support Ukraine. “I think what Putin did is very wrong. And I believe that Europe and the United States should continue to support Ukraine,” the ex-president said.
It is believed that after the collapse of the USSR, the third largest nuclear arsenal in the world turned out to be on the territory of Ukraine. On December 5, 1994, Boris Yeltsin, Bill Clinton, Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma and British Prime Minister John Major signed a memorandum in Budapest. The document states that in response to Ukraine’s renunciation of nuclear weapons and its accession to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, the other parties undertake to respect its independence, sovereignty and existing borders, not to use force against its territorial integrity and political independence and not to exercise economic coercion against Ukraine.
