Ukraine officially rejects guarantees substituting for NATO membership – Foreign Ministry

On the day of the NATO ministerial meeting, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine published its official position on possible security guarantees that could be seen as a deterrent against Russian aggression.

The statement of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine emphasises that it was made "on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the signing of the Budapest Memorandum". However, the document was released two days before the date (which is 5 December), and the choice of the day of publication is not accidental. European Pravda sources state that Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha intends to present this position at the NATO ministerial meeting that will begin on 3 December in Brussels.

The lengthy statement of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, which is framed as a political position paper, begins with references to expectations from the so-called Budapest Memorandum signed in 1994 as part of an agreement on Ukraine's nuclear arsenal renunciation.

"The Memorandum was to become a significant step in strengthening global nuclear disarmament and serve as an example for other states to give up nuclear weapons... However, it failed to prevent the aggression of the Russian Federation, as a nuclear-weapon state, against Ukraine, as a state that has renounced its nuclear arsenal," the ministry says.

The Foreign Ministry calls the Budapest Memorandum a "monument to short-sightedness in strategic security decision-making" and stresses that "the building a European security architecture at the expense of Ukraine's interests, rather than taking them into consideration, is destined to failure."

The main part of the statement is a political declaration on what guarantees are potentially acceptable to Ukraine.

"We are convinced that the only real guarantee of security for Ukraine, as well as a deterrent to further Russian aggression against Ukraine and other states, is Ukraine's full membership in NATO," the statement reads. At the same time, the document emphasises that Ukraine rejects alternative formats to membership in advance. "With the bitter experience of the Budapest Memorandum behind us, we will not accept any alternatives, surrogates or substitutes for Ukraine's full membership in NATO," the Foreign Ministry emphasises.

One thing to note is that all security agreements with other states signed by Ukraine during 2024 emphasise that they are not meant to be substitutes for NATO membership, so they do not fall under this definition.

The Foreign Ministry appeals to "the United States and the United Kingdom, signatories to the Budapest Memorandum, France and China, which have acceded to it, and all states-parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons" to politically support Ukraine's invitation to NATO right now, which will be "an effective counter to Russian blackmail".

The Foreign Ministry also recalls that it is not only about Ukrainian and not only about European security, as the attack on Ukraine, in violation of the 1994 agreements, "undermined confidence in the very idea of nuclear disarmament" and revived "active attempts by various countries from the Indo-Pacific region and the Middle East to the Euro-Atlantic area to create or expand their existing nuclear arsenals".

As reported, the NATO-Ukraine Council will be held in Brussels on Tuesday. Prior to the meeting, President Zelenskyy said for the first time that Ukraine could join NATO with Article 5 partially in force, but this idea has not yet been detailed.

This week, the US denied the possibility of Ukraine returning nuclear weapons to its arsenal.