The Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances comprises four substantially identical political agreements signed at the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE) in Budapest, Hungary, on 5 December 1994, to provide security assurances by its signatories relating to the accession of Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). The four memoranda were originally signed by four nuclear powers: Ukraine, Russia, the United States, and the United Kingdom. France and China gave individual assurances in separate documents.
The memoranda, signed in Patria Hall at the Budapest Congress Center with US Ambassador Donald M. Blinken amongst others in attendance, prohibited 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-defence or otherwise in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations". As a result of the memorandum and other agreements, between 1993 and 1996, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine gave up their nuclear weapons. On 6 December the CSCE without mentioning the Budapest Memoranda per se published in the same conference hall the Budapest Summit Declaration and the Budapest Decisions, following which on 1 January 1995 it became known as the OSCE.
Russia violated the Budapest memorandum in 2014 with its annexation of Ukraine's Crimea and in 2022 by invading Ukraine. As a response, the United States, United Kingdom, and France provided Ukraine with financial and military assistance, and imposed economic sanctions on Russia, while ruling out "any direct interventions to avoid a direct confrontation with Russia".
Content
According to the three memoranda, Russia, the US, and the UK confirmed their recognition of Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine becoming parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and effectively removing all Soviet nuclear weapons from their soil, and that they agreed to the following:
- Respect the signatory's independence and sovereignty in the existing borders (in accordance with the principles of the CSCE Final Act).
- Refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of the signatories to the memorandum, and undertake that none of their weapons will ever be used against these countries, except in cases of self-defense or otherwise in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations.
- Refrain from economic coercion designed to subordinate to their own interest the exercise by Ukraine, the Republic of Belarus, and Kazakhstan of the rights inherent in its sovereignty and thus to secure advantages of any kind.
- Seek immediate Security Council action to provide assistance to the signatory if they "should become a victim of an act of aggression or an object of a threat of aggression in which nuclear weapons are used".
- Not to use nuclear weapons against any non-nuclear-weapon state party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, except in the case of an attack on themselves, their territories or dependent territories, their armed forces, or their allies, by such a state in association or alliance with a nuclear weapon state.
- Consult with one another if questions arise regarding those commitments.
History
Partly as a way to gain international recognition, the Ukrainian government made commitments early on that Ukraine would be a non-nuclear-weapon state. The Declaration of State Sovereignty of Ukraine on 16 July 1990 committed Ukraine "not to accept, produce, or acquire nuclear weapons", although this was opposed by some Ukrainian politicians, who saw Russia as a threat. Until Ukraine transferred the Soviet nuclear weapons stationed on its soil, it held the world's third-largest nuclear weapons stockpile. Belarus only had mobile missile launchers, and Kazakhstan had chosen to quickly give up its nuclear warheads and missiles to Russia. Ukraine went through a period of internal debate on their approach.
Preliminaries
On 23 May 1992, Russia, the US, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine signed the Lisbon Protocol to the START I treaty, ahead of ratifying the treaty later. The protocol committed Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine to adhere to the NPT as non-nuclear weapons states as soon as possible. However, the terms for the transfer of the nuclear warheads were not agreed, and some Ukrainian officials and parliamentarians started to discuss the possibility of retaining some of the modern Ukrainian built RT-23 (SS-24) missiles and Soviet built warheads.
In 1993, two regiments of UR-100N (SS-19) missiles in Ukraine were withdrawn to storage because warhead components were past their operational life, and Ukraine's political leadership realised that Ukraine could not become a credible nuclear military force, as they could not maintain the warheads and ensure long-term nuclear safety. Later in 1993, the Ukrainian and Russian governments signed a series of bilateral agreements giving up Ukrainian claims to the nuclear weapons and the Black Sea Fleet, in return for $2.5 billion of gas and oil debt cancellation and future supplies of fuel for its nuclear power reactors. Ukraine agreed to ratify the START I and NPT treaties promptly. This caused severe public criticism, leading to the resignation of Ukrainian Defence Minister Morozov. On 18 November 1993, the Rada passed a motion agreeing to START I but renouncing the Lisbon Protocol, suggesting that Ukraine would only decommission 36% of missile launchers and 42% of the warheads on its territory, and demanded financial compensation for the tactical nuclear weapons removed in 1992. This caused US diplomatic consternation, and the following day Ukrainian President Kravchuk said: "we must get rid of [these nuclear weapons]. This is my viewpoint from which I have not and will not deviate." He then brought a new proposal to the Rada.
On 15 December 1993, US Vice President Al Gore visited Moscow for a meeting. Following side discussions, a US and Russian delegation, including US Deputy Secretary of Defense William J. Perry, flew to Ukraine to agree to the outlines of a trilateral agreement including US assistance in dismantling the nuclear systems in Ukraine and compensation for the uranium in nuclear warheads. Participants were invited to Washington on 3–4 January to finalise the agreement. A Trilateral Statement with a detailed annex was agreed, based on the previously agreed terms but with detailed financial arrangements and a firm commitment to an early start to the transfer of at least 200 warheads to Russia and the production in Russia of nuclear reactor fuel for Ukraine. Warheads would be removed from all RT-23s (SS-24) within 10 months. However, Ukraine did not want a commitment to transfer all warheads by 1 June 1996 to be made public for domestic political reasons, and Russia did not want the financial compensation for uranium made public because they were concerned that Belarus and Kazakhstan would also demand this. It was decided to exclude these two matters from the published agreement, but cover them in private letters between the countries' presidents.
Another key point was that US State Department lawyers made a distinction between "security guarantee" and "security assurance", referring to the security guarantees that were desired by Ukraine in exchange for non-proliferation. "Security guarantee" would have implied the use of military force in assisting its non-nuclear parties attacked by an aggressor (such as Article 42.7 of the Mutual Defence Clause of the European Defence Union for European Union members), while "security assurance" would simply specify the non-violation of these parties' territorial integrity. In the end, a statement was read into the negotiation record that the (according to the US lawyers) lesser sense of the English word "assurance" would be the sole implied translation for all appearances of both terms in all three language versions of the statement. In the Ukrainian and Russian version of the document, the wording "security guarantees" was used though.
President Clinton made a courtesy stop at Kyiv on his way to Moscow for the Trilateral Statement signing, only to discover that Ukraine was having second thoughts about signing. Clinton told Kravchuk that not signing would risk major damage to US–Ukraine relations. After some minor rewording, the Trilateral Statement was signed by the three presidents in Moscow in front of the media on 14 January 1994.
The Budapest Memoranda
The "Budapest Memorandum" is actually three documents signed individually on 5 December 1994 by the three leaders of the ex-Soviet nations, together with the guarantor nations: United States, United Kingdom, and Russia. So, the UNTERM portal notes for one:
To distinguish this from the other two Budapest Memorandums of the same date, this one could be referred to as the Budapest Memorandum regarding Kazakhstan.
Sequels
After this was agreed, the US used its Nunn–Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction programme to provide financial assistance over $300 million (equivalent to $652 million in 2025), and technical assistance in decommissioning the nuclear weapons and delivery systems, which took to 2008 to fully complete. The US also doubled other economic aid to Ukraine to $310 million (equivalent to $673 million in 2025) for 1994.
During the Tuzla Island conflict in 2003, Ukraine decided not to invoke the Budapest Memorandum.
In 2009, Russia and the United States released a joint statement that the memorandum's security assurances would still be respected after the expiration of the START Treaty.
2013 Belarus sanctions
In 2013, the government of Belarus complained that American sanctions against it were in breach of Article 3 of the Memorandum. The US government responded that its sanctions were targeted at combating human rights violations and other illicit activities of the government of Belarus and not the population of Belarus, and also noted that the Memorandum is "not legally binding".
2014 Russian annexation of Crimea
In February 2014, Russian forces seized or blockaded various airports and other strategic sites throughout Crimea. The troops were attached to the Russian Black Sea Fleet stationed in Crimea, which placed Russia in violation of the Budapest Memorandum. The Russian Foreign Ministry had initially denied the movement of armoured units attached to the Black Sea Fleet in Crimea, which led to the troops being labelled "little green men", however after taking full military control over Crimea, Russia finally did admit their involvement but asserted that they were acting within the scope of the various agreements between the two countries. Russia responded by illegally staging a so-called "referendum" on whether the Crimea should join it, where the option to remain part of Ukraine and keep the same rights and laws of 2014, as before, was not present. Prior to the referendum, Russian military blocked all the opposition TV and media, as well as radically put down the rallies for support of Ukraine. As a result, the Crimean parliament announced a referendum on Crimea's future in accordance with the law "On the Autonomous Republic of Crimea". On 16 March, the referendum was held. On 17 March, Crimea declared independence. On 21 March, it was incorporated into the Russian Federation.
Ukraine vigorously protested the action as a violation of Article 1 of the Budapest Memorandum. Russia breached Budapest memorandum in 2014 with its annexation of Ukraine's Crimea. As a response, the US and the UK provided Ukraine with financial and military assistance and imposed economic sanctions on Russia, while ruling out "any direct interventions to avoid a direct confrontation with Russia". After the annexation, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK, and the US stated that Russian involvement was a breach of its Budapest Memorandum obligations to Ukraine and in violation of Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity. On 1 March, the Address of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine to the Guarantor States in accordance with the Budapest Memorandum of 1994 on Security Assurances in connection with Ukraine's accession to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons was published.
On 4 March, Russian president Vladimir Putin replied to a question on the violation of the Budapest Memorandum, describing the current Ukrainian situation as a revolution: "a new state arises, but with this state and in respect to this state, we have not signed any obligatory documents". Russia stated that it had never been under obligation to "force any part of Ukraine's civilian population to stay in Ukraine against its will". Russia suggested that the US was in violation of the Budapest Memorandum and described the Euromaidan as a US-instigated coup.
On 24 March, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper led the G7 partners in an ad hoc meeting during the 2014 Nuclear Security Summit for a partial suspension of Russian membership from the G8 due to Russia's breach of the Budapest Memorandum. He said that Ukraine had given up its nuclear weapons "on the basis of an explicit Russian assurance of its territorial integrity. By breaching that assurance, President Putin has provided a rationale for those elsewhere who needed little more than that already furnished by pride or grievance to arm themselves to the teeth." Harper also indicated support for Ukraine by saying that he would work with the new Ukrainian government towards a free trade agreement.