Budapest Memorandum Debate

The cluster discusses the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, where Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons in exchange for security assurances from the US, UK, and Russia against threats to its territorial integrity, focusing on Russia's violation through invasion and implications for current negotiations and support.

➡️ Stable 0.5x Politics & Society
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#1863
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Keywords

NATO US www.dw spy.html HN USSR dailymail.co en.m UK PRIOR ukraine russia nukes nato nuclear putin war nuclear weapons peace weapons

Sample Comments

onedognight Feb 25, 2022 View on HN

The US and Russia agreed to defend Ukraine after Ukraine agreed to give up its nuclear weapons in the 1994 Budapest Memorandum. The Russians are violating this agreement today, and the US would be following it to defend Ukraine from Russia’s invasion.

sp332 Jul 29, 2014 View on HN

Ukraine gave up their nukes on condition that their borders be respected, and look what happened.

onedognight Nov 27, 2025 View on HN

Remember when Russia agreed[0] to defend Ukraine if they gave up their nuclear weapons?[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum

chrisco255 Aug 7, 2025 View on HN

I'm with you all the way up to the last paragraph.There has been no explicit peace deal with Russia. There has been an ongoing negotiation and attempts at agreements but my no means was Trump suggesting to surrender all of Ukraine to Russia.You do realize that EU support and weaponry is completely insufficient to fight Russia, right? Their military is far stronger than anything you've got. The only reason Ukraine has been doing as well as it has is because of American training, i

sroussey Jan 5, 2026 View on HN

Russia promised not to invade if Ukraine gave up the nukes.

chrisjc Feb 25, 2022 View on HN

Hasn't this been discussed numerous times on HN?The premise of this agreement was that US, UK, etc... wouldn't invade the Ukraine to seize/secure the nuclear assets, if they gave them up willingly?Not that the US, UK, etc... would protect the Ukraine if they gave it up?

q1w2 Mar 8, 2022 View on HN

He is referring to the deal offered PRIOR to the invasion. The deal that Ukraine commit to never joining NATO and agree to recognize Crimea as Russian.In retrospect, that was better than Ukrainian cities being absolutely destroyed.The rest of us are very keyboard brave with Ukrainian lives - telling them to fight to the end. ...but you would not be so brave if you had to live through this yourself.

randomname93857 Nov 17, 2023 View on HN

So what? there are many things that you intentionally omit in presenting your point, right? Ukraine gave up it nukes (Budapest accord) in exchange for promise that US, Russia will protect Ukraine in case of war (Albeit that was botched) , among other things.

variaga Feb 13, 2025 View on HN

Ukraine did not go to war, Russia went to war, and Ukraine had a "local" deal with Russia (in exchange for Ukraine giving up their nukes, Russia promised to honor their territorial integrity), Russia simply refused to honor their half of the deal.

Otek Feb 24, 2022 View on HN

US, and UK and Russia never agreed to "protect" Ukraine in exchange of their nukes, but that they won't attack them. US and UK didn't broke it, Russia did. But it's arguable that this deal was ever good for Ukraine, only for Putin so far.