Armed men, believed to be Russian servicemen, stand guard outside a Ukrainian military unit in the village of Perevalnoye outside Simferopol, March 11, 2014.
Ukrainian Intelligence Opposed Signing of Budapest Agreement -- Voice of America
KYIV — Mykola Malmuzh, former head of Ukraine’s external intelligence service, says security chiefs feared Russia would eventually try to seize Crimea and urged the country’s then president, Leonid Kuchma, to demand an enforcement mechanism for the 1994 Budapest Memorandum before signing it.
Malmuzh says intelligence chiefs worried that the agreement signed by the U.S., Russia, Britain and Ukraine failed to provide legally binding assurances.
The Western powers and Ukraine say Russia has broken the agreement by invading Crimea. The Budapest Memorandum committed all parties “to refrain from the threat or use of force against Ukraine’s territorial integrity.” But the agreement is not a treaty and doesn’t require any of the signatories to do anything in the event of violations.
Read more ....
My Comment: I was in Russia/Ukraine at that time .... and the overwhelming sentiment in Ukraine was to sign the agreement not because of border protections .... but to get rid of the hundreds (if not thousands) of nuclear weapons in Ukraine. No one in Ukraine wanted to be responsible for guarding and maintaining nuclear weapons depots .... and with Chernobyl as a reminder of what could happen if everything goes wrong .... with the exception of a few in the Ukrainian military and intelligence services .... everyone wanted these weapons out of the country.
No comments:
Post a Comment