En November 1994, Boris Yeltsin wrote to his American counterpart Bill Clinton. The former president of the Russian Federation urged the United States and the West to support “a historic Russian-Ukrainian treaty of friendship, cooperation and partnership”. A month after Yeltsin’s missive to Clinton, the leaders met in Budapest. In return for Ukraine giving up the world’s third-largest nuclear arsenal, the United States, Russia and the United Kingdom pledged to “respect the independence, sovereignty and existing borders of Ukraine” and of “refrain from the threat or use of force” against the country.
Tragically for Ukraine, the Budapest memorandum has not stood the test of time.
First of all Kyiv was manipulated by shrewd lawyers who insisted that security commitments to Ukraine be changed from “guarantees” to “assurances”. This formulation still haunts us. Second, the West had overconfidence in Yeltsin’s ability to lead Russia down the path of liberal democracy. The Westerners have indeed forgotten the presence of the powerful former heads of the Soviet secret services, enraged by the collapse of their former empire. The latter, although hidden in the shadows, remained very close to the Russian president.
Russia first violated the Budapest memorandum in 2003 when it threatened to seize the Ukrainian island of Tuzla in the Sea of Azov by force. Then came the constant blackmail over the gas supply. And, in 2014, Russian troops annexed Crimea and entered eastern Ukraine. This bloody aggression then turned into a full-scale military invasion earlier this year.
win the war
Russia is aware of a notion that many Westerners have forgotten: a country that wishes to preserve its sovereignty can only achieve this if it is known to be ready to use force.
Many believe that the Western system based on international rules – now threatened by Russia – was born at the end of the First World War with the policy of “self-determination”. At that time, US President Woodrow Wilson announced that “national aspirations [devaient] be respected” and “the peoples [pouvaient] henceforth no longer to be dominated and governed than by their own consent”adding that “Self-determination is not a simple expression; it is an imperative principle of action”.
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