On Dec. 5, 1994, the Budapest Memorandum was signed by the United States, Britain, Russia — and Ukraine, the country with the world’s third-largest nuclear arsenal.

Ukraine gave up those nuclear weapons in exchange for an eventually worthless pledge from the three other signatories to respect Ukrainian independence, existing borders, sovereignty, and to refrain from the use of armed force or threat.

Russia first violated the agreement in 2014 by illegally annexing Crimea and then in 2022 by invading Ukraine.

After talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin — without Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy — President Donald Trump decided Ukraine must reduce the size of its army, agree to never join NATO, and give Russia some of its territory [“Zelenskyy, U.S. officials discuss peace pl

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