Bill Clinton Says He Regrets Pushing Ukraine to Give Up Nukes in 1994
The former president said the West should continue to support Ukraine.
NOTE TO READERS: Subscribe to The Trends Journal weekly magazine for trend forecasts and news analysis you won’t find anywhere else and support independent journalism. TrendsJournal.com.
Former U.S. President Bill Clinton said he feels a “personal stake” in the Ukraine War because he said he pressured Ukraine to give up its substantial nuclear arsenal in 1994’s Budapest Memorandum.
WHAT WOULD HAVE HAPPENED IF RUSSIA JOINED NATO IN 2000?
Clinton gave an interview to Ireland’s RTE news service and said he feels a personal stake because he got Ukraine “to agree to give up their nuclear weapons. And none of them believe that Russia would have pulled this stunt if Ukraine still had their weapons.”
Ukraine once held the world’s third-largest amount of nuclear weapons—about 1,900 strategic warhead, 176 intercontinental ballistic missiles, and 44 strategic bombers, according to armscontrol.org.
Budapest Memorandum that vowed security assurances as long as Ukraine transferred its nuclear arsenal obtained after the fall of the Soviet Union.
The U.S. and U.K. vowed to come to Kyiv’s aid, but denied Kyiv’s request for a “legally binding guarantee.”
The Brookings Institute noted that the Budapest Memorandum – which was signed by the U.S., UK, and Russia – included security “assurances,” not “guarantees.”
“I knew that President [Vladimir] Putin did not support the agreement President Yeltsin made never to interfere with Ukraine's territorial boundaries - an agreement he made because he wanted Ukraine to give up their nuclear weapons. They were afraid to give them up because they thought that's the only thing that protected them from an expansionist Russia. When it became convenient to him, President Putin broke it and first took Crimea. And I feel terrible about it because Ukraine is a very important country,” he said.
Last February, Waldemar Skrzypczak, the Polish general and former junior defense minister, said he does not rule out the possibility that Ukraine’s military has nuclear capabilities – as Washington’s State Department remains diplomatically impotent.
The general said he cannot rule out the theory because Ukraine has “nuclear power plants, scientists, laboratories and knowhow.”
“In other words, everything they need to possess such a weapon. In fact, today no one is in a position to prohibit the Ukrainians from having it,” he said.
Guarantees would have implied a commitment of American military force, which NATO members have. U.S. officials made clear that was not on offer. Hence, assurances, according to the think tank.
Pavlo Rizanenko, a member of the Ukrainian parliament, told USA Today in 2014, “We gave up nuclear weapons because of this agreement. Now there's a strong sentiment in Ukraine that we made a big mistake.”
He continued, “In the future, no matter how the situation is resolved in Crimea, we need a much stronger Ukraine. If you have nuclear weapons, people don't invade you.”
In March, The United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency denied the Russian claim that Kyiv sought to acquire nuclear weapons prior to Moscow’s invasion. Sergey Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, said at the time that Kyiv was playing “dangerous” games in its quest to acquire these weapons.
Clinton said he thinks Putin was “very wrong” to invade and believes the U.S. should continue to support Ukraine.
“There may come a time when the Ukrainian government believes that they can think of a peace agreement they could live with, but I don't think the rest of us should cut and run on them,” he said.
TRENDPOST: The Trends Journal has long reported that peace has been banned in the West and the only acceptable position in the corporate media structure is to call for the defeat of Putin at all costs. (See “CHINA RESPONDS TO CRITICISM FROM U.S., WEST OVER UKRAINE PEACE PROPOSAL” 28 Mar 2023, “CHINA CRITICIZES BIDEN ADMINISTRATION FOR PROMOTING UKRAINE WAR AND ‘THROWING MUD’ ON POTENTIAL PEACE DEAL” 21 Mar 2023, and “ESTONIA EXPRESSES CONCERN THAT PEACE COULD BE ACHIEVED IN UKRAINE” 7 Mar 2023.)
Barnacle Bill the Clinton..