“President Volodymyr Zelenskyy emphasizes that Ukraine needs reliable security guarantees not only “on paper” to end the war, because at one time the guarantors of the Budapest Memorandum had a “foul” of Ukraine.”, — write: www.pravda.com.ua
Source: Zelensky in an interview with American podcaster Lex Friedman
Direct speech: “The Budapest Memorandum contained security guarantees for Ukraine. Initially, the three most important guarantors of security for Ukraine, three strategic friends and partners of Ukraine – the USA, Russia, Britain. France and China joined. There were 5 states… Now we understand that these are not security guarantees. It was written “reassurances”… These are the biggest powers, these are the nuclear five. Now it would be necessary to find all these people who invented all this, and just put them in prison…
Advertising:
After a part of Donbass and Crimea was occupied, Ukraine sent letters three times over the course of several years to all guarantors of security, to all members of the Budapest Memorandum. What is written in the memorandum? Consultations, Ukraine holds consultations if its territorial integrity is violated. And everyone must be at the consultations, everyone must come, must meet urgently – America, Britain, Russia, France, China.
Has anyone arrived? No. Has anyone responded to these official letters? Has anyone consulted? No. Why? Damn it. Is that understandable in Russian? Just as the Russians were in trouble, so all other guarantors were in trouble for this country, for these people, for these security guarantees.”
Details: Zelensky noted that he spoke with US President-elect Donald Trump about the Budapest Memorandum, and “we have not finished this conversation yet, we will continue it.”
The president also said that in February 2022, when a full-scale war had already begun, letters were also sent for consultations, and “no one answered” them.
“The question is simple – can we trust it? No. Whichever country from these 5 is sitting at the negotiating table, it’s just a piece of paper that says, ‘believe, we will save you,'” Zelensky said.
He also called the history of security guarantees for Ukraine a “waste paper train”, the second carriage of which was the Minsk agreements.
“The USA was no longer here. Then Obama was there, he was simply not interested in what happened to Ukraine and where it is,” the president added.
He also accused German ex-chancellor Angela Merkel of having “forced everyone to deny Ukraine an invitation to NATO” at the 2008 Bucharest summit, when even US President George W. Bush, a Republican, supported such a decision.