Posted on 08/18/2025 7:18:47 PM PDT by MinorityRepublican
Former President Bill Clinton has expressed remorse over his role in negotiating a 1994 deal that resulted in Ukraine giving up its nuclear arsenal, suggesting that Russia never would have invaded its smaller neighbor if it still had nukes.
“I feel a personal stake because I got them [Ukraine] to agree to give up their nuclear weapons. And none of them believe that Russia would have pulled this stunt if Ukraine still had their weapons,” Clinton told Irish broadcaster RTE in an interview that aired Tuesday.
The 42nd president was referencing a landmark post-Cold War deal in which then-Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk agreed to surrender roughly 1,900 nuclear warheads in exchange for security assurances from the US and United Kingdom, as well as a commitment from Russia to respect Ukraine’s territorial integrity.
The pact, known as the Budapest Memorandum, was violated in 2014 when Russian President Vladimir Putin annexed Crimea.
In February 2022, Putin once again flouted the agreement when he invaded Ukraine, calling it a “special military operation.”
“I knew that President Putin did not support the agreement [then-Russian] President [Boris] Yeltsin made never to interfere with Ukraine’s territorial boundaries – an agreement he made because he wanted Ukraine to give up their nuclear weapons,” Clinton said.
“They were afraid to give them up because they thought that’s the only thing that protected them from an expansionist Russia,” he added.
The former president remarked that he felt “terrible” that the deal was shattered and that Ukraine had little to offer as a deterrent to Putin’s invading forces.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Syphilis eventually rots the brain
What nonsense Ukraine never had nuclear weapons.
The weapons in ukraine were Soviet and were always under Russian
Control.
———————
Correct. Soviet Russia designed them, built them, maintained them and deployed them to Ukraine SSR, under strict Soviet guard. Ukraine SSR had the bulk of Soviet Russia’s nukes deployed on that territory. The problem was when Russia collapsed, they had no money or resources to remove them.
I was in Moscow during that time, and if you recall we paid Russia millions to destroy some of their nukes, by agreement . I witnessed at SVO airport, US Gold bars transferred on the ramp to awaiting armored vehicles, not dollars, but gold to help finance their nuclear reduction.
After the fall of Soviet Union, one of Western leaders main concerns was the nuclear capability of former Soviet states. They were afraid that those nuclear and other weapons fell into rough countries hand, or even worse, terrorists.
They considered Moscow to be too weak to attack anyone. They might be right at that point, but not for long... It took exactly two decades before Russian invaded Crimea.
Cash Flowed to Clinton Foundation Amid Russian Uranium ...
House.gov
https://docs.house.gov › meetings › HMKP-115-J...
PDF
Mar 28, 2017 — Clinton’s wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton. As the Russians gradually assumed control of Uranium One in three separate transactions from 2009 to ...
snip
Victor Pinchuk, a Ukrainian steel magnate and former member of the Ukrainian Parliament, is a prominent donor to the Clinton Foundation.
Reports indicate that Pinchuk has directed between $10 million and $25 million to the foundation over the years.
His contributions started in 2006 after being introduced to Bill Clinton.
In 2008, Pinchuk pledged $29 million to the Clinton Global Initiative, which is a division of the foundation that facilitates humanitarian projects.
Context of Donations and Related Activities:
Pinchuk is known for advocating for stronger ties between Ukraine and the European Union.
During Hillary Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State, Pinchuk and his representatives engaged with the State Department and Clinton aides, including Melanne Verveer, a Ukrainian-American who served as ambassador-at-large for global women’s issues, to discuss the ongoing political crisis in Ukraine.
A former political consultant to Bill Clinton, Douglas E. Schoen, who later became a registered lobbyist for Pinchuk, arranged approximately a dozen meetings with State Department officials on behalf of or with Pinchuk between September 2011 and November 2012, to discuss the continuing political crisis in Ukraine.
Schoen stated that his lobbying efforts were not related to Pinchuk’s donations to the foundation.
Pinchuk has also lent his private plane to the Clintons and attended Bill Clinton’s 65th birthday celebration.
Foundation Ties Bedevil Hillary Clinton’s Presidential Campaign Aug 20, 2016 — The foundation limited the conferences to domestic locations while Mrs. Clinton was secretary of state. On Thursday, Mr. Clinton said the gathering in September..
The New York Times-—Clinton Charity Tapped Foreign Friends -
WSJ——Mar 19, 2015 — Between 2009 and 2013, including when Mrs. Clinton was secretary of state, the Clinton Foundation received at least $8.6 million from the Victor Pinchuk Foundation.
What you need to know about Clinton and the Uranium One deal
pic-—Hillary Clinton at the Geisinger’s National Healthcare Symposium in Danville, Pa., Thursday, Nov. 9, 2017. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
Controversy surrounding the deal largely pertains to 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, who was secretary of state in 2010 when the State Department signed off on Rosatom’s purchase of Uranium One. | Matt Rourke/AP Photo
By Louis Nelson, politico.com. 11/14/2017 03:48 PM EST
Attorney General Jeff Sessions this week raised the possibility that a special counsel may be appointed to investigate potential wrongdoing by the Clinton Foundation, specifically suggestions that a U.S. government panel approved the sale of a large uranium firm to Russian interests in exchange for donations to the foundation. The so-called Uranium One deal has been a focus of conservative media and President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly asked on Twitter why the DOJ is not actively investigating the matter.
......... must-read questions — and some answers — regarding the controversy. What is the Uranium One deal? The deal in question involves the sale of a Canadian company, Uranium One, with mining interests in the U.S. to Rosatom, Russia’s nuclear energy agency. The sale occurred in stages, beginning in 2009 when Rosatom purchased a minority stake in Uranium One, and continued in 2010, when the Russian agency took ownership of a 51 percent share of the company. In 2013, a third transaction gave Rosatom full ownership of Uranium One.
With its purchase of Uranium One, Rosatom assumed control of roughly 20 percent of uranium production capacity in the U.S. The current licenses issued to Rosatom’s U.S. subsidiaries, issued by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, prohibit the company from exporting uranium outside the country, according to OilPrice.com. Because uranium is considered an asset with national security implications, the 2010 sale to Rosatom was subject to approval by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, an intragovernmental agency that includes input from the Departments of State, Treasury, Justice, Energy, Defense, Commerce and Homeland Security, as well as the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.
What are the allegations of wrongdoing? Controversy surrounding the deal largely pertains to 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, who was secretary of state in 2010 when the State Department signed off on Rosatom’s purchase of Uranium One. Several of Uranium One’s owners were also donors to the Clinton Foundation, giving $145 million to the charitable foundation, and critics have alleged that Clinton greenlighted the sale to appease donors to her family’s charity. Connections between Clinton Foundation donors and Uranium One were first published in 2015 by The New York Times, which based its reporting in part on the book “Clinton Cash,” by Breitbart News senior editor-at-large Peter Schweizer.
The allegations resurfaced last October, when The Hill reported that the FBI was investigating Kremlin “bribery, kickbacks, extortion and money laundering designed to grow Vladimir Putin’s atomic energy business inside the United States.”
Is there any truth to the allegations? As PolitiFact has laid out in great detail, there is no direct evidence of a quid pro quo among Clinton, the State Department, Rosatom and the Clinton Foundation donors with ties to Uranium One. Clinton has repeatedly denied any involvement in the State Department’s approval of the Uranium One sale, insisting that such approval was granted at lower levels of the department and would not have crossed the secretary’s desk.
Jose Fernandez, who was the assistant secretary of state for economic, energy and business affairs when the Uranium One deal was approved, told the Times that Clinton “never intervened with me on any [Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States] matter.” Beyond the State Department, eight other government agencies approved the Uranium One sale.
Yeah, that was Bill’s part of the deal to uphold.
“They were never under Ukrainian control.”
Ukraine did controlled former Soviet nuclear weapons left on its territory after the 1991 Soviet Union collapse, which were transferred to Russia by 1996 in exchange for security assurances, under the 1994 Budapest Memorandum and the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), and Ukraine has been a non-nuclear weapon state since then.
After its dissolution in 1991, Ukraine inherited about 130 UR-100N intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) with six warheads each, 46 RT-23 Molodets ICBMs with ten warheads apiece, as well as 33 heavy bombers, totaling approximately 1,700 nuclear warheads that remained on Ukrainian territory.
wy69
Bill Clinton admits regret for having Ukraine give up nuclear weapons
Prior to Clinton ever becoming president in 1993, Ukraine had already bound itself to "adhere to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons of July 1, 1968 as non-nuclear weapon states Parties in the shortest possible time."
As Ukraine acted as usual and did not do what it promised to do, while promising to do it, the United States and Russia joined together in refusing to welcome Ukraine into the international community. Ukraine never owned any nukes. The nukes were made in Russia, heir to the nukes of the USSR. The warheads were not made in Ukraine. Ukraine could not maintain the nukes, and the codes were held by Russia. The United States and Russia were partners on de-nuking Ukraine as the nuke warheads were on Russian missiles targeted at the United States. Then as later, Ukraine was an unstable state. As was stated at the time, nobody want another Yugoslavia with nukes.
Then-President Leonid Kravchuk was quoted as saying, "It would have been too expensive for Ukraine to manufacture and maintain them on its own. It would have cost us $65 billion (53 billion euros), and the state coffers were empty,"
Prior to the Budapest Memorandum, Ukraine (and Belarus and Kazakhstan) had already bound itself to the Lisbon Accords of May 23, 1992 which contained the following text and attachment:
ARTICLE VThe Republic of Byelarus, the Republic of Kazakhstan, and Ukraine shall adhere to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons of July 1, 1968 as non-nuclear weapon states Parties in the shortest possible time, and shall begin immediately to take all necessary action to this end in accordance with their constitutional practices.
PRESIDENT OF UKRAINE
May 7, 1992
KievDear Mr. President:
In connection with the ratification by Ukraine of the 1991 Treaty between the United States and the USSR on the Reduction of Strategic Offensive Arms, I have the honor to advise you that Ukraine, in implementing this Treaty, shall assume the following obligations.
In accordance with the Declaration on the State Sovereignty of Ukraine adopted by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine on July 16, 1990, and with the Statement of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine on the Non-Nuclear Status of Ukraine adopted on October 24, 1991, Ukraine shall have a non-nuclear status, will abide by the three non-nuclear principles in the future, and emphasizes its right to control over the non-use of nuclear weapons deployed in its territory.
Ukraine shall guarantee the elimination of all nuclear weapons, including strategic offensive arms, located in its territory in accordance with the relevant agreements and during the seven-year period as provided by the START Treaty and within the context of the Statement of the Non-Nuclear Status of Ukraine. Ukraine will take into account its national security interests in conducting this activity. In this connection, if any questions should arise Ukraine will consult with the other Parties to the Treaty.
In addition, I should like to note that the process of elimination of nuclear weapons in Ukraine should be carried out under reliable international control which should guarantee the non-use of nuclear charge components for repeated production of weapons and should prevent their export to other countries.
Respectfully,
/s/
Leonid Kravchuk
President of UkraineHis Excellency George Bush
President of the United States of America
Washington, D. C.
The Clintons sold our uranium to Russia during the obama occupation.
Hate to admit it, but old Bill Clinton is 100% correct. It was a fatal mistake.
Clinton, you big dummy.
That’s nonsense. Ukraine had a lot of “Soviet weapons”. They still do. No one compelled them to give anything back. Clinton assuring Ukraine of protection if they gave up the nukes was just another example of Democrat bad faith.
Was Clinton persuaded by Rich’s hot wife?
The presidency went down hill after REagan, hitting rock bottom with Obama. All of them were do nothing, know nothing. Stupid.
Trump has reset the bar, higher than ever.
Next president and the ones after will be mighty men or women.
Anyone in his cabinet would be better than Clinton, Bush, Obama etc.
Trump is relentless. He tires me out. He is fearless.
He is a true Leader as were our best presidents.
The wandering American liberals think he’s a dictator.
In a sense he is dictating what we need.
All the rest of these jerks, went with the wind, and kept us all out of the loop.
We’re watching history unfold everyday.
Reagan was great but he was focused on the Soviet Union and the Cold War. He did not do much regarding the domestic policy.
YEs, Trump is a true throw back to our greatest presidents who didn’t need all these research groups telling him what to do.
I think the only person who tells him what to do is his COS
Ol’ Slick does not like to discuss his trips to Russia as a young one. His wife was certainly a communist sympathizer. So ......
Go Figger!!
It’s more than just that the Soviet military always had physical and operational control of these nukes. Part of the agreement to allow Ukrain leave the Soviet Union stated that all nuclear weapons would remain under Soviet control.
Ukraine never had physical let alone operational control over a single nuclear weapon ever. The Ukrainian government nor the Ukrainian military ever had any abuility to operate or deploy a nuke.
All nukes in Ukraine were always 100% under the control of Moscow, they were never ever in any way shape or form under Ukraine control.
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