Kyslytsia speaks about myths surrounding Budapest Memorandum

Sergiy Kyslytsya, First Deputy Head of the Office of the President, stated this in a television interview, Ukrinform reports.

"There are thick layers of mythology surrounding the Budapest Memorandum. To begin with, even the texts of this document in different languages speak about different things. The Ukrainian translation of the memorandum does not correspond to the English text, because the English text does not contain the word 'guarantees.' In the English title of the document, it refers to 'assurances.' Further throughout the document there is not only no mention of guarantees, there is not even mention of 'assurances'; it speaks of 'commitments.' But the official Ukrainian text refers to guarantees," Kyslytsya noted.

He explained such discrepancies in the Budapest Memorandum by saying that at the time the signatories needed to promote the document to their respective societies.

"The Ukrainian government - for the needs of Ukrainians, the Western world - for other purposes. If you look at the correspondence between Bill Clinton and Boris Yeltsin ahead of the summit [in Budapest], which was declassified several years ago by the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. National Archives, you will see how secondary the issue of Ukraine was, including when it came to the future summit. And how the American side in correspondence with the Russian side maintained the line that these should not be guarantees but assurances; that it should be a memorandum that was never meant to be and was not ratified by the U.S. Congress," he emphasized.

At the same time, Kyslytsya stressed that today a document must be adopted between Ukraine and the United States that specifically provides for security guarantees and is to be ratified by the U.S. Congress. "These are completely different stories and completely different types of documents," he noted.

As previously reported, at the Munich Security Conference, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said that future security guarantees for Ukraine must be reliable and real, not a "paper tiger" like the 1994 Budapest Memorandum.

On December 5, 1994, in Budapest, Ukraine, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, and the United States signed the Memorandum on Security Assurances in connection with Ukraine’s accession to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.

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