Ukraine rejects guarantees that serve as substitutes for NATO membership—Foreign Ministry statement

On the day of the NATO ministerial meeting, Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs released its official position on potential security guarantees that could serve as a deterrent against Russian aggression.

The Foreign Ministry statement emphasizes that it was made “on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the signing of the Budapest Memorandum.” However, they made the document public two days before the date (December 5), indicating that the choice of publication day was deliberate. It is likely that Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha intends to present this position at the NATO ministerial meeting in Brussels.

Beginning with references to expectations from the 1994 “Budapest Memorandum,” which was part of an agreement to give up Ukraine’s nuclear arsenal, the lengthy statement of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry frames itself as a political position paper.

“We expected the Memorandum to significantly advance global nuclear disarmament and set a precedent for other states to abandon 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,” Kyiv reminds.

The Budapest Memorandum, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, is “a monument to shortsightedness in making strategic security decisions” and underscores the failure of developing the European security architecture at the expense of Ukraine’s interests, rather than with them in mind.

The main part of the statement is a political declaration that outlines the potential guarantees that Ukraine may accept.

“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.

Simultaneously, the document underscores Ukraine’s preemptive rejection of any alternatives to membership. “Having 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 emphasizes.

All security agreements with other states signed by Ukraine in 2024 emphasize that they are not substitutes for NATO membership, so they do not fall under this definition.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs appeals to “the United States and the United Kingdom, which signed the Budapest Memorandum; to France and China, which joined it; and to 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 counteraction to Russian blackmail.”

Kyiv also reminds us that it is not only about Ukraine and not only about European security, as the attack on Ukraine, contrary to the 1994 agreements, “undermined confidence in the very idea of nuclear disarmament” and revived “active attempts by various countries from the Indo-Pacific and Middle East to the Euro-Atlantic area to create or expand existing nuclear arsenals.”

The NATO-Ukraine Council is taking place in Brussels on December 3-4. Ukrainian President Zelenskyy first suggested that Ukraine could join NATO with a partial Article 5, but he did not elaborate on this idea before this meeting.

Last week, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha called on NATO member states to extend an invitation to Kyiv to join the alliance.

NATO is not likely to support Ukraine’s request for an invitation to join the alliance during its December 3 meeting, Reuters reported.

Despite Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha’s appeal for Kyiv’s invitation to NATO, the agency notes that there is no consensus among the 32 member states of the Alliance to make such a decision at the ministerial meeting in Brussels.