re: Latest Updates: Russia-Ukraine Conflict

quote:

---

why didn't we feel obligated in 2014 when Russia annexed Crimea?

---

quote:

---

In the case of Ukraine we were talking about assurances which was something less, it meant that 82nd Airborne was not coming, and that was understood in Kiev. We were very clear on that question. A second point is that the actual Memorandum does not prescribe specific actions except in two cases. It prescribes a consulting mechanism and it prescribes an appeal to the United Nations Security Council in the event that nuclear weapons are used against Ukraine or threatened against Ukraine. But other actions are sort of left undefined,

---

quote:

---

I mean Ukrainian concern as articulated to us was about Russian violations of Ukrainian sovereignty or territorial integrity -- that there would be a response incumbent on the United States and on Great Britain. I think that if you look over the last 10 months you have seen the United States responding primarily in two ways, support for Ukraine and penalizing Russia in terms of particularly economic sanctions. And I think the United States government has done quite a bit. I would argue though that the United States could do more in terms of
fulfilling its obligations under Budapest.
And just briefly in terms of support for Ukraine you've seen a significant
amount of critical and economic support. Vice President Biden has been to Kiev three times in the last eight months, you've seen President Obama hosting President Poroshenko here, you've seen American support for the IMF program for Ukraine, and $120 million in non lethal military assistance. I would argue that there are probably two things more that the United States could and should be doing. One would be provision of
defensive arms. Now defensive is always a hard term. My tank is always going to be defensive; your tank is clearly offensive. But when I talk about defensive arms I'm talking about things like men, portable light anti armor weapons that I think most militaries would regard as more of a defensive weapon than an offensive weapon, the idea being giving the Ukrainians capability to inflict costs on the Russian military should the Russians resume military hostilities. And I think in a way that would help stabilize the cease fire and stabilize a settlement.
And then a second thing where the United States may be called upon in
the coming months to do is most analysts seem to expect that Ukraine will need more economic assistance to get through the course of the next year. And I think the United States and Europe should be prepared to consider that contingent on Ukraine doing what
it needs to do in terms of economic reforms

---

quote:

---

At best they only knew the name of the document. Perhaps partly misunderstanding was due to the difficulties of translations. In Ukrainian version the document is called (speaking in Ukrainian), that can be translated to English as Memorandum on Security Guarantees. In fact, however, the English version of the document is called Memorandum of Security Assurances. I am not good in English but I suppose Ambassador Steven Pifer can confirm that, that assurances and guarantees are not the same things. Moreover I was surprised to learn that at least four English words with similar but not identical meanings versus a single Ukrainian word (speaking in Ukrainian), these are guarantee, guaranty, warranty, and assurance. So our mistake was that we believed that received guarantees when in fact we only got assurances.

---

quote:

---

A practical lesson for Ukraine falls from this; it cannot rely on any international assurances. It must rely primarily on its own forces. Creating combat ready forces in the shortest possible time is a matter of life and death for Ukraine.

---

quote:

---

What can we expect from the West? We cannot expect that the West will fight for us with Russia, but we expect that the West, especially the United States, will do more to support Ukraine than they have already done. We expect that the United States will provide military assistance to Ukraine including lethal weapons and military
training of the Ukrainian army. We expect that economic sanctions against Russia will not be cancelled until Russia stops supporting armed separatists. We expect that in the
future when NATO and European Union will consider the issue of Ukraine membership the only criteria for their decision will be fulfilling the conditions necessary for membership, not the position of Russia or any other countries.

---

quote:

---

The actual American and British commitments to protect Ukraine were very weak. Steve mentioned one of them, the countries pledged to seek Security Council action in the event Ukraine was attacked or threatened with nuclear weapons.

---

quote:

---

And, you know, that example -- you know, Saudi Arabia is not a U.S. Treaty ally, but nonetheless the U.S. acted forcefully to evict Iraqi forces from Kuwait when those Iraqi forces threatened the security of the Saudi Kingdom.

---

quote:

---

And what we have to do now if tomorrow Putin decides to launch a new offensive in Ukraine, no one will defend it with their troops. We understand this. At the best the West will introduce new sanctions against Russia. With the current state of Ukrainian army it is unlikely to win a war, but Ukraine has no choice but resistance. The submissions to Putin-Russia means putting an end to the dream of turning Ukraine into democratic state and possibly to the very existence of Ukraine as an independent state.

So I repeat we must rely only on our forces, but we expect that Western states which have at least moral obligations of not legal obligations under the Budapest Memorandum will help us more than they've almost done

---