Looking Back: Ukraine’s Nuclear Predicament and the Nonproliferation Regime

By Mariana Budjeryn

November 16, 2014, marked 20 years since Ukraine joined the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) as a non-nuclear-weapon state, relinquishing the nuclear arsenal it inherited from the Soviet Union. Today, the nuclear renunciation of Ukraine, along with those of Belarus and Kazakhstan, is hailed as a great contribution to the cause of nuclear nonproliferation. This accomplishment is all the more laudable considering the unprecedented challenges created by the demise of the nuclear superpower and the ambiguous status of the nuclear armaments left on the territory of its non-Russian successors.

Of the three successors, Ukraine followed the most difficult path to the NPT, fraught with contention and acrimony. Soon after the breakup of the Soviet Union, Ukraine’s initial commitment to denuclearization gave way to a more cautious treatment of its nuclear inheritance. Ukraine’s claim to rightful ownership of nuclear weapons, based on its status as a legal successor to the Soviet Union on par with Russia, became the most controversial aspect of its disarmament negotiations with Russia and the United States.

This article examines the origins and development of this claim. Contrary to conventional wisdom, the claim to nuclear ownership did not arise solely or even primarily from a desire by Ukraine to leverage its bargaining position and exert financial compensation and security guarantees from Russia and the West. Instead, it originated as a challenge to Russia’s privileged status as the sole nuclear heir of the Soviet Union and an attempt to reconstitute relations with Moscow on the basis of formal equality.

From Renunciation to Ownership
One Saturday in April 1986, after an unexpected power surge, a reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in northern Ukraine burst into flames, exposing millions of unsuspecting people across northeastern Europe to plumes of radioactive material. The Chernobyl accident also exposed the negligence of the Soviet leadership, which led to the explosion, and its duplicity, which was evident in its handling of the aftermath. In the years that followed, the accident spurred widespread anti-nuclear sentiment that became an integral part of Ukraine’s pro-independence movement: “anti-nuclear” became synonymous with “anti-Soviet.”[1]

At the same time, due to the secrecy and centralization of Soviet strategic military affairs, very few Ukrainians knew that the world’s third-largest nuclear arsenal was located on their territory.[2] Those privy to the knowledge included political leaders who viewed the centralized control of the strategic systems as an impediment to Ukraine’s drive away from Moscow. In the words of prominent diplomat Volodymyr Vasylenko, “By being a nuclear power [Ukraine] could not have full independence.”[3]

These considerations led Ukraine to proclaim its intention to become a neutral state and “adhere to three non-nuclear principles: not to receive, develop or acquire nuclear weapons” in the Declaration of Sovereignty passed by the Ukrainian parliament, the Rada, on July 16, 1990.[4] The declaration also affirmed Ukraine’s right to form its own military and conduct an independent foreign policy. In an attempt to act out this right and “remind the outer world of its existence,” Ukraine asked to join the NPT as a non-nuclear-weapon state prior to the 1990 NPT Review Conference.[5] Moscow thwarted this attempt due to the perception that participation in a major international regime by a Soviet republic would exacerbate decentralizing tendencies within the Soviet Union.[6]

The events of August 1991 radically altered the context within which Ukraine was to decide its nuclear future. The failed coup of August 19, attempted by conservative Soviet military and security apparatchiks, highlighted the defenselessness of Ukraine, a self-proclaimed sovereign state with only the republican police to protect it from the Soviet military behemoth. On August 24, the Rada passed the Declaration of Independence, which marked the birth of Ukrainian statehood. More than anything else, the document conveyed a profound sense of insecurity with its opening words: “Proceeding from the mortal danger that gripped Ukraine during the coup d’etat in the USSR.”[7]

Not accidentally, the very next bill passed by the Rada was a resolution subordinating all military units located on Ukraine’s territory to the Rada and ordering the establishment of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry and national armed forces.[8] Subsequently, Ukraine claimed ownership of all property and financial assets on its territory formerly belonging to the Soviet Union.[9] The problem was that some of these military units and properties were associated with the Soviet nuclear complex.

As the crumbling of the union became irreversible, Ukraine began negotiating its relationship with a fellow country striving for democracy, the Russian Federation led by Boris Yeltsin. This new Moscow held the promise of a partnership based on equality rather than domination. In September 1991, Yeltsin declared that Russia was no longer an empire, saying that it would be an “equal among equals.”[10] Kyiv’s pro-independence politicians, including moderate nationalists who saw Ukraine as a European country and feared that Moscow’s long tradition of dominating Ukraine would continue, thought this equality should apply in all respects, including the right to Soviet succession.

This new stance was first articulated by Vyacheslav Chornovil, the leader of the national-democratic Rukh party, who issued a statement in September 1991 stressing that Ukraine, like Russia and other republics, was the “rightful heir to all the material and technical resources, including weapons, of the former Soviet Union.”[11] The fate of Ukraine’s nuclear inheritance, he maintained, should be decided through treaties with “nuclear states.” Meanwhile, the existence of nuclear weapons in Ukraine, coupled with its aspiration to relinquish them, would serve as “a good incentive” for the creation of its independent armed forces, as well as for international recognition of Ukraine “as a fully fledged subject of international law.”[12]
Collective Insecurity

As Chornovil had understood, the establishment of Ukraine’s national army was a daunting task. It encountered formidable resistance from the command of the Soviet military, the only central Soviet institution still intact in late 1991. With about one million troops on its territory formally under oath to Moscow, the new Ukrainian state had to decisively secure their loyalty. Preserving unified control over strategic armaments was a technical and political necessity. Yet, the label “strategic” encompassed not only nuclear warheads, but also the vast research and development, communications, and intelligence infrastructure; air defense systems; and the troops of the 43rd Rocket Army and 46th Air Army associated with the strategic arsenal. What kind of independence would Ukraine achieve, after all, if part of its military remained subordinated to Moscow?

As it turned out, the expectation that nuclear weapons would prompt international recognition of Ukraine could not have been farther from reality. The United States stated explicitly that it opposed any possibility of independent control over nuclear armaments by non-Russian republics. U.S. Secretary of State James Baker insisted that Soviet nuclear weapons remain under “safe, responsible and reliable control with a single unified authority,” the precise nature of which was for “Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Belarus, and any common entity to determine.”[13] Indeed, the United States granted Ukraine diplomatic recognition only after such unified control was formally preserved in the form of the Joint Strategic Command (JSC) of the newly created Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).

Nevertheless, the nuclear settlement reached at the CIS founding meetings in December 1991 was highly ambiguous. It envisioned a kind of nuclear umbrella to provide for the collective security of all members of the commonwealth. Ukraine committed to eventually transferring all tactical and strategic nuclear weapons to Russia. Until that time, it undertook some obligations traditionally associated with nuclear-weapon states, such as adherence to the no-first-use principle and commitment not to transfer nuclear weapons to other states.[14] Agreements spoke of joint command and control, but said nothing of who possesses the weapons.

The moderate nationalist members of the Rada, however, opposed any idea of a collective security arrangement with Russia. As Ivan Zayets, a Rukh member of the Rada security and defense committee, argued, a collective security system with Russia would hinder Ukraine’s prospects to “integrate…into the world economy and world civilization.”[15] Thus, although Ukraine joined the JSC, it steered clear of every other CIS security commitment.

Unsurprisingly, the JSC soon proved unworkable. Principled differences over the role of the CIS, mixed loyalties, and overlapping chains of military command erupted in a series of incidents late in early 1992. In one of the incidents, crews loyal to Moscow flew six SU-24 strategic bombers out of a Ukrainian air base to Russia. In response, Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk on March 12 halted the transfer of tactical nuclear weapons to Russia and moved to establish “administrative control” over strategic forces, obligating all troops to take a Ukrainian military oath.[16] Although the transfer later resumed and was completed within the agreed time, the disputes over the status of strategic forces were to plague negotiations with Ukraine until the very end.[17]

Succession Without Possession
Meanwhile, the historic Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) signed by the United States and the Soviet Union on July 31, 1991, was cast into dubious legal territory as one of its signatories no longer existed. Ukraine and Kazakhstan, although not Belarus, insisted that they should become parties to the treaty. Despite Russian objections, the United States decided to go along with these demands. In May 1992 in Lisbon, the United States, Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Belarus signed a protocol making the latter three countries parties to START “as successor states” of the Soviet Union.[18] Lest this should be construed as the right of the non-Russian republics to claim those strategic armaments not subject to START reductions, Article 5 of the Lisbon Protocol obligated them to join the NPT as non-nuclear-weapon states “in the shortest possible time.”[19] Until then, the weapons were to remain under the control of a single unified authority.

The protocol did not specify the nuclear status of the non-Russian republics before they joined the NPT, and diplomatic notes submitted at the signing in Lisbon revealed that Russia and Ukraine had very different opinions on the issue. The Ukrainian note claimed that Ukraine voluntarily renounced its legitimate right to possess nuclear weapons as an equal successor of the Soviet Union and, in exchange, the country would demand security guarantees from the nuclear-weapon states.[20] The Russian Foreign Ministry stressed that Russia considered Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine “non-nuclear weapons states at the moment of the signing of the Protocol.”[21]

In mid-1992, Ukraine commenced negotiations with the United States on security guarantees. By the end of that year, however, it became clear that the United States was not prepared to make any binding security commitments to Ukraine beyond political assurances extended to all NPT non-nuclear-weapon states or pledged in other multilateral instruments such as the UN Charter and the Helsinki Final Act.[22] Moreover, neither security assurances nor financial aid and compensation for denuclearization would be forthcoming until Ukraine joined the NPT.[23]

Meanwhile, the perceived threat of border revisionism by Russia grew. Moscow’s involvement in the conflicts in Transnistria and the Caucasus, as well as its support for Crimean separatism, ran counter to the democratic equality Yeltsin once promised. To Ukraine’s demands for security guarantees, Russia responded that it would respect Ukraine’s borders only “within the borders of the CIS,” a formulation Ukraine rejected because that demand effectively made its territorial integrity hostage to membership in the CIS.[24]

By February 1993, Ukraine had become the only signatory not to ratify the START-Lisbon package. Kravchuk submitted it to the Rada in November 1992, but the vote was repeatedly postponed. Decried as Ukraine’s backtracking on its commitments, the lack of progress in denuclearization landed Kyiv in complete international isolation. Bereft of allies and threatened by Russia, Ukraine redoubled its insistence on nuclear ownership.

From Ownership to Renunciation
The claim of nuclear ownership crystallized as the main focus of Ukraine’s position by early 1993. The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry reported that Ukrainian-Russian nuclear negotiations were at an impasse because of principled differences on nuclear ownership and the status of strategic forces on Ukrainian territory.[25] That July, the Rada passed a set of foreign policy principles, claiming pointedly that, “as a result of historical events, Ukraine became the owner of nuclear weapons.”[26] Russia unsurprisingly construed this as a unilateral declaration of nuclear status.[27]

Within Ukraine, the right to nuclear ownership, which stemmed from insistence on legal equality with Russia, was translated into two main narratives.[28] Kravchuk and the Foreign Ministry employed it to substantiate Ukraine’s entitlement to financial and political compensation for relinquished state property of strategic significance.[29] They maintained that Ukraine’s nuclear ownership did not contradict the NPT since the country did not aspire to operational control over its weapons.30 Some senior Rada members, however, considered it the basis for retaining the 46 SS-24 missiles that were not subject to START reductions. Under this approach, Ukraine’s complete nuclear disarmament would be achieved through further treaties and in conjunction with reductions by other nuclear possessors.[31]

When the Rada finally voted on START in November 1993, it was this second narrative that found expression in its extensive reservations. The ratification bill, citing the 1983 Vienna Convention on the Succession of States, claimed that “all property of the strategic and tactical nuclear forces on Ukrainian territory, including nuclear warheads, is the state property of Ukraine.”[32] The Rada upheld proportional reductions under START, amounting to 36 percent of delivery vehicles and 42 percent of warheads, and proclaimed itself not bound by Article 5 of the Lisbon Protocol obligating Ukraine to join the NPT in the shortest possible time.[33]

Despite its initial outrage, the Clinton administration decided to engage in active diplomacy to mediate the crisis. In January 1994, this effort yielded the Trilateral Statement signed by the presidents of Russia, Ukraine, and the United States, pledging unconditional security assurances, technical assistance, and compensation for the highly enriched uranium contained in strategic and tactical weapons. In doing so, Moscow and Washington effectively recognized Ukraine’s claim that relinquishing its nuclear weapons entitled it to compensation. In a subsequent letter urging the Rada to remove its reservations, Kravchuk underscored the political significance of the trilateral process, in which Ukraine engaged in negotiations with Russia and the United States as a “fully fledged and equal partner.”[34]

In February 1994, the Rada granted full ratification to the START-Lisbon package, restoring the link with the NPT. In November 1994, the Rada ratified the NPT, also with reservations.[35] Although it continued to insist on the ownership of the weapons it was relinquishing and pointed to the shortcomings of the NPT in capturing Ukraine’s unique situation, the main focus of the reservations was the inadequacy of the security commitments Ukraine was receiving in return.[36] These commitments were formalized on December 5, 1994, in a memorandum signed by Russia, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, and the United States in Budapest at the summit of the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe.[37]

Security assurances pledged by the nuclear-weapon states in the Budapest Memorandum remained substantively unchanged from what the United States brought to the negotiating table in 1992. They included negative and positive nuclear security assurances and commitments to respect Ukraine’s territorial integrity and abstain from economic coercion, the threat of force, or use of force. The memorandum also provided for consultations of signatories “in the event of a situation arising that raises a question concerning [parties’] commitments.”[38] The Ukrainian leadership, however, knew full well that these security assurances would neither deter violators nor lead to their punishment. Following the signing of the memorandum, Leonid Kuchma, Ukraine’s new president, conceded, “If tomorrow Russia goes into the Crimea no one will even raise an eyebrow. Besides…promises, no one ever planned to give Ukraine any guarantees.”[39]

The consultation mechanism was invoked for the first time in 20 years in March 2014 following the reports of a mass influx of unmarked Russian troops into Crimea, but Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov declined to participate. In a statement released following the meeting, Ukraine, the UK, and the United States called on Russia to take seriously the assurances given “in return for Ukraine giving up its nuclear weapons.”[40] Thus, over the years, the recognition that the nuclear arsenal was Ukraine’s to give up has become commonplace. In the early 1990s, however, the issue of the status of nuclear arms on Ukrainian territory was no matter of casual semantics.

Ukraine’s claim to nuclear ownership was not entirely untenable; its legal succession to the Soviet Union was recognized in relation to conventional armed forces.[41] If successful, however, the claim would have dragged out the country’s denuclearization indefinitely, with profound repercussions for the entire post-Cold War settlement. It ultimately collided with the interests of Ukraine’s powerful interlocutors and the precepts of the international nonproliferation regime. The very existence of the NPT meant that a different set of rules applied to the nuclear part of Ukraine’s military inheritance than to the conventional one. Furthermore, the NPT’s stark binary categories of “nuclear-weapon state” and “non-nuclear-weapon state” could not be reconciled with Ukraine’s new category of “nuclear ownership”—legal possession without operational control—which fell somewhere in the middle. Ukraine could sustain its claim only by remaining outside of the NPT. That option would have spelled isolation from the international community, which Ukraine ultimately wanted to join, not defy.

The normative power of the NPT and the pressure applied by Russia and the United States reinforced each other. As Ukraine yielded to these formidable political and normative pressures, it failed to obtain binding guarantees of its national security. The importance of the Budapest Memorandum, however, was in linking Ukraine’s accession to the NPT with security assurances against conventional as well as nuclear threats.Because of this connection, Russia’s military campaign against Ukraine violates the Budapest Memorandum and is detrimental to the NPT and the value of security assurances for future nonproliferation efforts.

Last August, as Russian troops poured into eastern Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin reminded the world that Russia is one of the world’s most powerful nuclear nations. At one time, this privileged status carried with it a sense of special responsibility for fostering the nonproliferation regime. Today, Russia’s nuclear boast suggests that it has resolved to use its nuclear status as a license to act with impunity. This is a perilous situation for the NPT. Just as it had benefited from the support of nuclear-weapon states, so is it particularly vulnerable to a nuclear possessor’s breach of commitments undertaken in connection with the treaty.

Mariana Budjeryn is a Ph.D. candidate at the Doctoral School of Political Science, Public Policy, and International Relations at the Central European University in Budapest. Her research focuses on the politics of nuclear disarmament of Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

ENDNOTES

1. Jane Dawson, Eco-Nationalism: Anti-Nuclear Activism and National Identity in Russia, Lithuania, and Ukraine (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1996), p. 78.

2. The precise numbers on Ukraine’s nuclear inheritance are unknown. It is generally believed that the inherited arsenal consisted of 176 intercontinental ballistic missiles, including 130 liquid-fueled SS-19 and 46 solid-fueled SS-24 missiles, 44 strategic heavy bombers armed with AS-15 Kent cruise missiles, close to 2,000 nuclear warheads to arm these strategic delivery systems, and more than 2,600 tactical nuclear weapons.

3. John Lloyd and Chrystia Freeland, “A Painful Birth,” The Financial Times, February 25, 1992. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Anatoloy Zlenko recalled similar reasoning on the issue in his memoirs. See Anatoliy Zlenko, Dyplomatiia I Polityka. Ukraїna v Protsesi Dynamichnykh Heopolitychnykh Zmin [Diplomacy and politics. Ukraine in the process of dynamic geopolitical changes] (Kharkiv: Folio, 2003).

4. “Deklaratsiia pro derzhavnii suverenitet Ukraiiny [Declaration of state sovereignty of Ukraine],” Vidomosti Verkhovnoii Rady Ukraiiny [Official Bulletin of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine], No. 31, St. 429 (July 16, 1990), http://zakon1.rada.gov.ua/cgi-bin/laws/main.cgi?nreg=55-12. 

5. Victor Batiouk, Ukraine’s Non-Nuclear Option (New York: UN Institute for Disarmament Research, 1992), p. 3. Batiouk served as a representative of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic to UN institutions in Geneva from 1978 to 1984 and then as Ukraine’s permanent representative to the United Nations from 1992 to 1994.

6. William Potter, The Politics of Nuclear Renunciation: The Cases of Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine, Occasional Paper (Washington, DC: Henry L. Stimson Center, April 1995), p. 13. The United Kingdom and the United States chose not to challenge Moscow’s opinion.

7. “Akt proholoshennia nezalezhnosti Ukraiiny [Act of declaration of independence of Ukraine],” Vidomosti Verkhovnoii Rady Ukraiiny [Official Bulletin of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine], No. 38, St. 502 (August 24, 1991), http://zakon.rada.gov.ua/cgi-bin/laws/main.cgi?nreg=1427-12.

8. “Postanova pro viis’kovi formuvannia na Ukraiini [Resolution on the military units in Ukraine],” Vidomosti Verkhovnoii Rady Ukraiiny [Official Bulletin of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine], No. 38, St. 562 (August 24, 1991), http://zakon2.rada.gov.ua/laws/show/1431-12.

9. “Zakon Ukraiiny pro Pidpryiemstva, Ustanovy Ta Orhanizatsii Soiuznoho Pidporiadruvannia, Roztashovani Na Terytorii Ukraiiny [Law of Ukraine on enterprises, institutions and organizations of union subordination on the territory of Ukraine],” Vidomosti Verkhovnoii Rady Ukraiiny [Official Bulletin of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine], No. 46, St. 615 (September 10, 1991), http://zakon3.rada.gov.ua/laws/show/1540-12.

10. Michael Dobbs, “Yeltsin Promises Russia Will Not Dominate Union,” The Washington Post, September 4, 1991.

11. “Vyacheslav Chornovil pro bez’iadernyi status Ukraiiny [Vyacheslav Chornovil on the non-nuclear status of Ukraine],” Molod Ukrajiny, September 12, 1991.

12. Ibid.

13. Sidney D. Drell and James E. Goodby, The Gravest Danger: Nuclear Weapons (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 2003), p. 72.

14. “Soglasheniie o sovmestnykh merakh v otnoshenii iadernogo oruzhiia. [Agreement on joint measures on nuclear weapons],” December 21, 1991, http://cis.minsk.by/reestr/ru/index.html#reestr/view/text?doc=3.

15. “Protokol no. 7. Zasidannia komisii Verkhovnoii Rady Ukraiiny z pytan’ natsionalnoii bezpeky i oborony [Protocol no 7. meeting of the Defense and Security Committee of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine],” October 21, 1991, Fond 1-P, Opis 1, Delo 2179, Central State Archive of Ukraine.

16. Serge Schmemann, “Ukraine Halting A-Arms Shift to Russia,” The New York Times, March 13, 1992; “Ukaz pro nevidkladni zakhody po budivnytstvu Zbroinykh Syl Ukraiiny [Decree on urgent measures regarding the establishment of the armed forces of Ukraine],” April 5, 1992, http://zakon2.rada.gov.ua/laws/show/209/92.

17. In fact, the transfer was completed by May 6, 1992, ahead of the June 1, 1992, deadline stipulated in the Commonwealth of Independent States agreement of December 21, 1991. The Russian announcement on the completion of the transfer was timed to coincide with the visit of Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk to Washington. It came as a surprise to Kravchuk, embarrassing him and underscoring how much control Russia still had over military affairs on Ukrainian territory.

18. “Protocol to the Treaty Between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on the Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms,”  May 23, 1992, http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/27389.pdf.

19. Ibid.

20. For the content of the note, see Valeriy Kuchinsky, “Za Bezpeku Bez Konfrontacii [For security without confrontation],” Polityka i Chas, Nos. 9-10 (October 1992), p. 38. Kuchinsky was chief of the disarmament department at the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

21. “Written Statement by the Russian Side at the Signing of the Protocol to the START Treaty on 23 May 1992 in Lisbon,” Arms Control Today, June 1992, p. 36.

22. For a more detailed discussion of the negotiation process on security assurances, see Sherman Garnett, “The Role of Security Assurances in Ukrainian Denuclearization,” in Missed Opportunities?: The Role of Security Assurances in Nuclear Non-Proliferation, ed. Virginia Foran (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1997); Mariana Budjeryn, “The Breach: Ukraine’s Territorial Integrity and the Budapest Memorandum,” NPIHP Issue Brief, No. 3 (September 2014), http://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/Issue%20Brief%20No%203--The%20Breach--Final4.pdf.

j23. In terms of financial aid, the United States had made funds available to post-Soviet states under the Cooperative Threat Reduction program, created by legislation sponsored by Senators Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) and Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) and passed in November 1991. In addition, in September 1992, Russia and the United States signed a $5 billion deal for the purchase of highly enriched uranium contained in dismantled Soviet warheads. This awakened Ukrainian leadership to the fact it had neither demanded nor received any compensation for the tactical weapons transferred earlier and the strategic warheads to be dismantled. It was understood that Russia would work out a settlement with Ukraine and others, but the entitlement to compensation was ultimately connected to the contentious question of ownership. In addition, until mid-1993, Russia refused to consider the idea of retroactive compensation for the tactical nuclear weapons transferred in 1992.

24. “Zapys Besidy Zastupnyka Ministra Zakordonnykh Sprav Ukraiiny B. Tarasiuka Z Poslom Z Оsoblyvykh Doruchen’ Ministersva Zarordonnykh Sprav RF M. Strel’tsovym. [Report of a meeting of Ukrainian Deputy Foreign Minister B. Tarasiuk with Ambassador-at-Large of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation M. Streltsov],” January 12, 1993, Fond 1, Delo 7039, Archive of the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

25. “Pro Kompleksne Vyrishennia Shyrokoho Kola Pytan’, Pov’iazanykh Z Roztashovanoiu Na Terytorii Ukraiiny Stratehichnoiu Iadernoiu Zbroieiu I Taktychnymy Iadernymy Boiezariadamy, Vyvedenymy Vesnoiu 1992 Roku P Ukraiiny Dlia Iikh Rozukompledtuvannia I Znyshchennia [On the comprehensive resolution of the wide range of issues related to the strategic nuclear weapons located on the territory of Ukraine and tactical nuclear warheads, removed from Ukraine in spring of 1992 for their dismantlement and elimination],” March 1993, Fond 1, Delo 7057, List 23-25, Archive of the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

26. Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, “Postanova pro Osnovni Napriamy Zovnishnioii Polityky Ukraiiny [Resolution on the main principles of the foreign policy of Ukraine],” Vidomosti Verkhovnoii Rady Ukraiiny [Official Bulletin of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine], No. 37, St. 379 (July 2, 1993), http://zakon2.rada.gov.ua/laws/show/3360-12.

27. Yuri Dubinin, “Ukraine’s Nuclear Ambitions: Reminiscences of the Past,” Russia in Global Affairs, April 13, 2004, http://eng.globalaffairs.ru/number/n_2913. Dubinin headed the Russian delegation to the talks.

28. There was a third narrative: retaining all nuclear weapons as a strategic deterrent, advocated by Rada members Colonel-General Volodymyr Tolubko and ultranationalist Stepan Khmara. This narrative, however, was marginal in Ukraine’s nuclear discourse and found no support with the Rada or the executive branch.

29. “Memorandum Ministerstva Zakordonnykh Sprav Ukraiiny [Memorandum of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine],” December 11, 1992, Fond 1, Delo 6857, List 241-246, Archive of the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

30. Ibid., p. 243.

31. Dmytro Pavlychko, Holosy Moho Zhyattia. Statti, Vystupy, Interv’iu. Dokumenty [The Voices of My Life. Articles, Speeches, Interviews. Documents] (Kyiv: Osnovy, 2013), pp. 419-421 (Pavlychko’s speech to the Rada on June 2, 1993). Pavlychko was the chair of the Rada foreign affairs committee and a member of the Presidium, a body comprised of senior Rada leadership that controlled the legislative agenda.

32. Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, “Postanova pro ratyficatsiiu Dohovoru mizh Soiuzom Radianskykh Sotsialistychnykh Respublik i Spoluchenymy Shtatamy Ameryky pro skorochennia i obmezhennia stratehichnykh nastupal’nykh ozbroien’, pidpysanoho u Moskvi 31 lypnia 1991 roku, i Protokolu do nioho, pidpysanoho u Lisaboni vid imeni Ukrainy 23 travnia 1992 roku [Resolution on ratification of the treaty between the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the United States of America on strategic arms reductions and limitations signed in Moscow on July 31, 1991, and its protocol signed in Lisbon on behalf of Ukraine on May 23, 1992],” Vidomosti Verkhovnoii Rady Ukraiiny [Official Bulletin of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine], No. 49, St. 464 (November 18, 1993), http://zakon3.rada.gov.ua/laws/show/3624-12. The 1983 Vienna Convention on Succession of States in Respect of State Property, Archives and Debts never entered into force as not enough parties had ratified or signed it. Ukraine ratified it on January 8, 1993. For more detail on the  convention, see https://treaties.un.org/pages/ViewDetails.aspx?src=TREATY&mtdsg_no=III-12&chapter=3&lang=en.

33. Ibid.

34. “Lyst Presydenta Ukraiiny L. Kravchuka Holovi Verkhovnoii Rady Ukraiiny I. Plyushchu [Letter of President L. Kravchuk to speaker of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine I. Plyushch],” January 24, 1994, Fond 1, Opis 16, Delo 4964, Central State Archive of Ukraine.

35. The 10-month delay between the ratification of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty and the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) was primarily due to the change of government in Kyiv, with early parliamentary elections taking place in March and early presidential elections in June 1994.

36. Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, “Zakon Ukraiiny pro Pryiednannia Ukraiiny Do Dohovoru pro Nerozpovsiudzhennia Iadernoii Zbroii Vid 1 Lypnia 1968 Roku [Law of Ukraine on accession to the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons of July 1, 1968],” Vidomosti Verkhovnoii Rady Ukraiiny [Official Bulletin of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine], No. 47, St. 421 (November 16, 1994), http://zakon2.rada.gov.ua/laws/show/248/94-вр. Article 4 contained a caveat that Ukraine would treat the use or threat of use of force against its territorial integrity as “extraordinary circumstances that jeopardize its supreme interests,” a formulation taken verbatim from NPT Article X, which deals with withdrawal from the treaty.

37. China and France pledged similar security assurances separately in a bilateral format.

38. UN General Assembly and UN Security Council, “Memorandum on Security Assurances in Connection with Ukraine’s Accession to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons,” A/49/765, S/1994/1399 (December 5, 1994).

39. Taras Kuzio, Ukraine Under Kuchma (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997), p. 220 (quoting a December 6, 1994, Reuters article).

40. Office of the Spokesperson, U.S. Department of State, “U.S./U.K./Ukraine Press Statement on the Budapest Memorandum Meeting,” March 5, 2014, http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2014/03/222949.htm.

41. As a Soviet successor state, Ukraine acceded to the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe in July 1992 and undertook proportional reductions in accordance with the treaty.