The Overthinker's Journal

After the fall of the Soviet Union, Ukraine suddenly held the 3rd largest nuclear arsenal in the world. So, they reached an agreement with the United States, Russia, and the United Kingdom.

This treaty was signed in Budapest, on May 12, 1994. Ukraine promised to become a non-nuclear-weapon state, and in return for giving up their nuclear weapons, we promised the following:

1. The Russian Federation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the United States of America reaffirm their commitment to Ukraine, in accordance with the principles of the CSCE Final act, to respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine.
2. The Russian Federation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the United States of America reaffirm their obligation to refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine, and that none of their weapons will ever be used against Ukraine except in self-defense or otherwise in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations.
3. The Russian Federation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the United States of America reaffirm their commitment to Ukraine, in accordance with the Principles of the CSCE Final Act, to refrain from economic coercion designed to subordinate to their own interest the exercise by Ukraine of the rights inherent in its sovereignty and thus to secure advantages of any kind.
4. The Russian Federation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the United States of America reaffirm their commitment to seek immediate United Nations Security Council action to provide assistance to Ukraine, as a non-nuclear-weapon state party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, if Ukraine should become a victim of an act of aggression or an object of a threat of aggression in which nuclear weapons are used.
5. The Russian Federation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the United States of America reaffirm, in the case of Ukraine, their commitment 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.
6. Ukraine, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the United States of America will consult in the event a situation arises which raises a question concerning these commitments.

There’s a lot of dense treaty language there, so if you don’t mind, I’m going to quickly summarize the clauses:

1. Russia, the UK, and the USA recognize that Ukraine is an independent nation and its borders are its borders.
   • Trump and Vance have repeatedly threatened that Ukraine would lose territory and would not be made whole again. Again today, Trump said Ukraine may not survive.
2. Russia, the UK, or the USA will never use weapons to challenge Ukraine’s independence or borders. If and only if Ukraine attacks first or the UN decides to authorize it is that allowed.
   • I wouldn’t think I need to give a link here, but people in the disinformation bubble believe Trump’s tweet that Ukraine started the war, so here you go.
3. Russia, the UK, or the USA will not economically blackmail Ukraine for their own benefit.
   • Like, um…. rare earth minerals?
4. Russia, the UK, and the USA will go to the UN to protect Ukraine if it is attacked or threatened to be attacked by nuclear weapons.
   • Yeah… about that.
5. Russia, the UK, and the USA agree they will not use nuclear weapons on Ukraine, unless Ukraine uses nuclear weapons or allies with a nuclear weapon state to attack them.
   • For this one, at least I can say that we haven’t threatened it.
6. In the event this treaty is broken, Ukraine, Russia, the UK, and the USA all get a seat at the table.
   • Forget Ukraine, the United Kingdom wasn’t even invited…

And if that’s not enough, here’s our Secretary of State back in 2014, describing that agreement. And also theorizing on what reneging on it would mean to other countries.

We owe Ukraine our support. We pledged it to them. Forget the fact that this is a domino, and Ukraine falling could lead to more instability in Europe. We promised Ukraine: give us your nuclear weapons, and we’ll protect you.

I wonder, when we took the nukes, did we even say “thank you” once?

Slava Ukraini!