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Richard Grenell, U.S. Envoy for special missions, caused a scandal by falsely claiming that the nuclear weapons Ukraine transferred to Russia under the Budapest Memorandum were supposedly Russian.
Grenell made this statement on X, Ukrinform reports.
“Let’s be clear about the Budapest Memorandum: the nukes were Russia’s and were leftovers. Ukraine gave the nukes back to Russia. They weren’t Ukraine’s. This is an uncomfortable fact,” Grenell wrote
In the comments, users reminded Grenell that Russia had violated its commitments under the Budapest Memorandum. He replied briefly: “True.”
Also, Steven Pifer, former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine (1998–2000) and now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, strongly disagreed with Grenell.
“I helped negotiate Budapest Memorandum. Grenell is flat wrong. Nuclear warheads in Ukraine were ex-Soviet, not Russian. Warheads in storage were in sole Ukrainian custody. ICBMs and bombers were eliminated in Ukraine except small number sent to Russia for debt relief,” Pifer wrote.
He emphasized that Ukraine decided to transfer the warheads to Russia for dismantling primarily because Moscow had pledged to respect Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and to refrain from using force against the country.
As reported, following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Ukraine inherited the third-largest nuclear arsenal in the world, with 1,734 strategic warheads. However, by June 2, 1996, Ukraine became a nuclear-free state, transferring all nuclear munitions to Russia. By 2001, all 176 missile silos were decommissioned.
The Budapest Memorandum, signed on December 5, 1994, by Ukraine, Russia, the UK, and the U.S., guaranteed security assurances to Ukraine in exchange for giving up its nuclear weapons. The key obligations included: respecting Ukraine’s independence, sovereignty, and borders, refraining from the use of force or threats against Ukraine, no economic pressure to subvert Ukraine’s sovereign rights, commitment to consult the UN Security Council if Ukraine became a victim of aggression, non-use of nuclear weapons against Ukraine (or any NPT signatory without nuclear weapons).
Despite these assurances, Russia violated the agreement by annexing Crimea in 2014 and launching a full-scale invasion in 2022.
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