The Budapest Memorandum was a set of political agreements signed on the sidelines of a conference of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe by Ukraine, Russia, the United States and the United Kingdom, with France and China giving separate statements. Ukraine had inherited a large part of the Soviet nuclear arsenal, and it agreed to give up the weapons and join the Non-Proliferation Treaty as a non-nuclear state. In return the signatories gave assurances to respect Ukraine's independence, sovereignty and borders and to refrain from the threat or use of force against it. These were assurances rather than binding security guarantees that required military defense. Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014 and its full-scale invasion in 2022 were widely seen as violations, and the memorandum became a central point in debates on nuclear non-proliferation.
Before and after
- 9 November 1994Discovery of darmstadtium
- from 9 November 1994 to 3 October 1995O. J. Simpson murder case
- from 29 November 1994 to 24 December 1994Operation Winter '94
- December 1994Operation Spider
- 5 December 1994Budapest Memorandum
- 8 December 1994Discovery of roentgenium
- from 11 December 1994 to 31 August 1996First Chechen War
- from 31 December 1994 to 8 February 1995Battle of Grozny
- 1995Release of Apache HTTP Server
More in Wars, politics & history
- from 5 June 1967 to 10 June 1967Six-Day War
- 11 February 1990Nelson Mandela is released from prison
- from 2 August 1990 to 28 February 1991Gulf War
- 20 February 2014Russo-Ukrainian war
- 31 January 2020Brexit
- 7 October 2023Gaza War
The era
This moment belongs to the Contemporary world (1945 CE to today), the world since 1945. You can also browse everything in the 20th century.