{"id":595367,"date":"2025-11-26T16:39:29","date_gmt":"2025-11-26T16:39:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/595367\/"},"modified":"2025-11-26T16:39:29","modified_gmt":"2025-11-26T16:39:29","slug":"ukraine-peace-deal-will-hinge-on-security-guarantees-but-kyiv-has-been-there-before","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/595367\/","title":{"rendered":"Ukraine peace deal will hinge on security guarantees \u2013 but Kyiv has been there before"},"content":{"rendered":"

Whether the various peace plans<\/a> now under discussion bring an end to Russia\u2019s war against Ukraine will depend largely on security guarantees. But securing an agreement between Ukraine, its allies and Russia about how Ukraine\u2019s future security will be assured may prove to be the most difficult part of any peace deal. <\/p>\n

Ukraine already has bitter experience of what happens when a security guarantee turns out to be no guarantee at all<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Back in 1994, Ukraine reluctantly put its faith in the vague assurances of the Budapest memorandum<\/a>. According to the terms of that agreement, Ukraine gave up the Soviet-era nuclear weapons stationed on its territory and pledged to sign the non-proliferation treaty<\/a> and remain a non-nuclear country. <\/p>\n

In exchange, Russia, Britain and the US promised to respect the independence, sovereignty and borders of Ukraine and not to use force against that country. <\/p>\n

But the only commitments that Moscow, London and Washington made was to seek action by the UN security council to support Ukraine \u2013 and then only if Ukraine were attacked or threatened with attack by nuclear weapons. The memorandum made no mention of what should happen if Ukraine faced an attack using conventional forces. <\/p>\n

As Ukraine\u2019s then-president, Leonid Kuchma, remarked <\/a> after the deal was done: \u201cIf tomorrow Russia goes into Crimea, no one will raise an eyebrow.\u201d<\/p>\n

Twenty years later, Kuchma\u2019s prediction came true. In 2014, Russian troops occupied strategic points in Crimea<\/a>. The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, then engineered a widely discredited referendum on the region\u2019s future status and claimed it as part of the territory of the Russian Federation.<\/p>\n

Russia went on to arm, fund and direct local militias<\/a> in eastern Ukraine and covertly sent its own soldiers to fight with them to undermine Ukraine\u2019s sovereignty. <\/p>\n

Britain and the US \u2013 among other western countries \u2013 imposed economic sanctions<\/a> on Russia and provided training, funding and supplies<\/a> to the Ukrainian armed forces. This material support accelerated rapidly after Russia\u2019s full-scale invasion in 2022. But these measures have not stopped Russia\u2019s aggression or guaranteed Ukraine\u2019s security. <\/p>\n

Now, as the full-scale conflict in Ukraine nears its fourth anniversary, the success of a new set of peace deals will, in large part, hinge on whether Kyiv can rely on its allies to come to the rescue if Russia decides to resume hostilities at some future stage. <\/p>\n

Empty promises<\/p>\n

In 2023, former US president Bill Clinton expressed his regrets<\/a> at his role in the Budapest Memorandum. He revealed that back in 2011<\/a> Putin had told him that Russia\u2019s leaders did not consider themselves to be bound by the agreement. <\/p>\n

In the 1990s, Ukraine\u2019s leaders had a variety of reasons for actively choosing to relinquish nuclear weapons. These included the promise of much-needed economic assistance from the west and the Ukrainians\u2019 own experience of the devastating impact of nuclear technology in the shape of the 1986 Chernobyl accident. <\/p>\n


\n Read more:
\n Thirty years ago, Ukrainians got rid of their nuclear arsenal \u2013 now most of them regret that decision<\/a>
\n <\/strong><\/p>\n

There was also a strong consensus in Ukrainian society<\/a> in favour of non-nuclear status. But recently released archival documents<\/a> demonstrate that the country\u2019s leaders had serious reservations about how Ukraine\u2019s security would be ensured after nuclear weapons were removed from its territory. <\/p>\n

The Budapest Memorandum is an example of an agreement shaped by short-term considerations with long-term consequences very different from the ones that at least some of the signatories anticipated. Western countries, led by the US, were focused on confining the thousands of Soviet nuclear<\/a> weapons to one country to reduce the chances that they might end up in the hands of terrorist groups or rogue states. <\/p>\n

\"John<\/p>\n

US secretary of state John Kerry in discussions with Britain and Ukraine about Russia\u2019s violation of the Budapest Memorandum after Russia\u2019s 2014 annexation of Crimea.
\n State Department\/Sipa USA<\/p>\n

In the mid 1990s any future threat that Russia might pose to Ukraine was outweighed in the eyes of the west by two other considerations. The first was optimism that Russia would develop into a democracy<\/a> and become a partner rather than an adversary. <\/p>\n

The second was that Russia was too weak<\/a> to pose a threat in the foreseeable future. The absence of genuine security guarantees in the Budapest agreement, therefore, reflected the predominant view in the west that pledges of good will would be sufficient to protect Ukraine.<\/p>\n

Hard choices for Zelensky<\/p>\n

With this history in mind and faced with the prospect of having to agree to a negotiated settlement, the Ukrainian president, Volodymr Zelensky, has been insistent that Ukraine will only be truly secure inside Nato. Opposition to Nato membership for Ukraine from Russia \u2013 but also from several members of the alliance, especially the US \u2013 has led the Ukrainians and their allies to search for alternatives.<\/p>\n


\n Read more:
\n Any peace deal in Ukraine must be just and fair \u2013 the plan proposed by the US and Russia was neither<\/a>
\n <\/strong><\/p>\n

The \u201ccoalition of the willing\u201d \u2013 a group of countries supporting Ukraine including the UK, various European nations, Canada and Turkey \u2013 have indicated their willingness<\/a> to provide forces in the air, at sea and even on the ground to deter further aggression. But the plan for a multilateral peacekeeping force relies on the participation of the US for much of its credibility. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s not clear whether Washington will be willing to provide such assurances. Previously the Trump administration has played down any commitment<\/a> to providing security guarantees for Ukraine. <\/p>\n

For Russia, on the contrary, the Budapest Memorandum appears to be the precedent that it is following in crafting security assurances for Ukraine. The peace plan currently under discussion<\/a> \u2013 which we now know that Russian official Kirill Dmitriev had a large role in drafting<\/a> \u2013 offers only a bland assurance that Ukraine would receive reliable security guarantees. <\/p>\n

At the same time it imposes a limit on the size of Ukraine\u2019s armed forces. It also prevents it from joining Nato and bans the troops of Nato member states on its territory. All of which would severely undermine Ukraine\u2019s security.<\/p>\n

As a result, each of the interested parties have very different views about the nature of security guarantees that would be sufficient. Ukraine is pushing for Nato membership. Russia is vehemently opposed. The Europeans are trying to find a pragmatic halfway house. The Trump administration is reluctant to commit American resources to much of anything. <\/p>\n

The chances a negotiated settlement to this war will be reached quickly or easily by negotiations remain remote, at best.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Whether the various peace plans now under discussion bring an end to Russia\u2019s war against Ukraine will depend…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":595368,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7654],"tags":[2000,299,657],"class_list":{"0":"post-595367","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ukraine","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-ukraine"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115616990895309910","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=595367"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595367\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/595368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=595367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=595367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=595367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}