The Budapest Memorandum, signed in the Homeland Hall of the Budapest Congress Center in the presence of, among others, US Ambassador Donald M. Blinken, prohibits Russia, the United States, and the United Kingdom from threatening or using military force or economic coercion against Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan, “except in self-defense or otherwise in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations.” Following other agreements and the memorandum, between 1993 and 1996, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine renounced their nuclear weapons. The Ukrainian government, under Western pressure, completed the destruction or handed over to Russia of the Soviet nuclear weapons still stationed on its territory on October 30, 2001, and destroyed its own nuclear-capable bombers. Had it not done so, would Russia have invaded Ukraine first in 2014 and then again in 2022? At the time, the Soviet arsenal in Ukrainian hands was the third largest in the world.
