Opinion | Russia’s invasion of Ukraine shows fearful nations nuclear weapons mean safety

On top of the human cost of the war in Ukraine, international agreements and nuclear non-proliferation are suffering as more governments look to go nuclear

The fate of Libya and Ukraine is likely to keep Iran and North Korea on their current paths and sway the likes of Saudi Arabia, Japan and Taiwan

Reading Time:3 minutes

A security officer talks in a part of the Uranim Conversion Facility, just outside the city of Isfahan, Iran, on March 30, 2005. While the world’s attention has been focused on Ukraine, the Biden administration has been racing forward with other global powers towards restoring the 2015 international nuclear deal with Iran. Photo: AP

Published: 1:00am, 7 Mar 2022Updated: 1:47pm, 9 Mar 2022

Among the many casualties of the unfolding war in Ukraine, two hold a special place in the heart of the global order – international agreements and nuclear non-proliferation.

Ukraine, which once had the third-largest stockpile of nuclear weapons, gave them all away in the Budapest Memorandum in exchange for signed assurances from Russia not to use force to threaten its independence. The result is now here for all to see, and world leaders are watching.

Many states will draw a sobering lesson from Ukraine’s misfortune and conclude that, when it comes to the survival of their nation, nuclear weapons trump international agreements every time. The world is already witnessing an uptick in proliferation sentiment and will become more volatile for it.

Ukraine signed on to the Minsk II agreement in February 2015 in an effort to end hostilities with Russian-backed forces in the Donbas region. The last-minute calls by Western leaders to invoke the agreement as war approached last month, as well as Putin’s denial of its existence, only highlighted the deal’s fragility and the danger of basing one’s security on the abstract principles of international law.

The deal’s undoing was that Moscow was party to the negotiations and influenced its outcome on paper, but since Russia claimed to not be directly involved in the conflict, it could shirk implementing the agreed changes. Essentially, it had all the power and no responsibility. If things did not proceed as Moscow wished, it could ditch the agreement as void and resort to violence again, which it did.

Worse, the undefined size of the “special status territories” gave pro-Russian separatist leaders in Donetsk and Luhansk scope to claim authority over areas in those provinces still under Kyiv’s control. This ambiguity provided the legal pretext under which Russia launched its offensive last month.

The takeaway for vulnerable states is that peace accords signed with hostile actors who are impervious to international norms offer no protection. The infinite interpretative wiggle room of international agreements allows aggressors to walk back commitments signed on paper while marching into your territory.

The same is true for the Budapest Memorandum, the violation of which has now damaged the cause of non-proliferation. In 1994, under pressure from a Washington high on its post-Cold War moment, a newly independent Ukraine did what seems unthinkable now. It handed over its entire nuclear arsenal to Russia in exchange for commitments from Washington, London and Moscow to “refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine”.