Former US President Bill Clinton said that in 2011, after meeting Russian leader Vladimir Putin, he thought Moscow’s special military operation in Ukraine was “just a matter of time”. Then in Davos, the Russian president told his American counterpart that he did not support the Budapest memorandum, according to which Ukraine renounced nuclear weapons in exchange for guarantees of security and territorial integrity, reports the Financial Times.
Vladimir Putin told me in 2011, three years before taking over Crimea, that he did not agree with the document I concluded with (ex-president of the Russian Federation) Boris Yeltsin … He said, ‘I don’t agree with this and I can’t stand this, I’m not connected to them’, and from that day on I realized it was just that. a matter of time
said Clinton.
At the same time, the American politician did not specify which particular provision of the Budapest memorandum Putin was talking about in 2011.
The Budapest Memorandum was signed by Clinton (USA), Boris Yeltsin (Russia), Leonid Kuchma (Ukraine) and John Major (Great Britain).
Earlier, Bill Clinton regretted persuading Ukraine to renounce nuclear weapons in 1994. He said he “felt personally responsible” for the move. No one believes Russia would pull off this trick if Ukraine still had its weapons, the ex-president said. Clinton called Moscow’s decision to launch a special operation “very wrong”.
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