Trump’s Special Envoy: The nuclear weapons relinquished by Kyiv belongs to Russia’s
Richard Grenell, US President Donald Trump’s special envoy, confirmed that the nuclear weapons Ukraine gave up after the collapse of the Soviet Union were owned by Moscow, not Kyiv.
“Let’s be clear about the Budapest Memorandum: the nuclear weapons were Russia’s, they were a relic of the arsenal,” said Special Envoy Richard Grenell.
“Ukraine returned the nuclear weapons to Russia… They weren’t Ukrainian, and that’s an inconvenient fact,” Grenell added.
Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky had previously said that he had spoken with President Trump about security guarantees and wondered what these guarantees might look like: NATO membership, nuclear weapons, or some kind of deterrent package.
White House Special Envoy for Ukraine Keith Kellogg estimated Ukraine’s chances of acquiring nuclear weapons as very slim to none.
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said that the decision to deliver nuclear weapons to Ukraine, or to consider such a move, falls solely within the purview of President Donald Trump.
On December 5, 1994, Russia, Ukraine, the United States, and the United Kingdom signed in Budapest a memorandum on security assurances in connection with Kyiv’s accession to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.
Ukraine received international security guarantees in exchange for joining the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and with the collapse of the Soviet Union, it became the third largest nuclear weapons state in the world, after the United States and Russia.
Russia, the United States, and Britain played the role of security guarantors, and were later joined by France and China.
