This month marks 30 years since Ukraine signed an agreement to give up its nuclear arsenal, the world’s third largest at the time. With Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine nearing the three-year mark, Kyiv now calls the agreement with Moscow short-sighted. VOA Ukrainian’s Tatiana Vorozhko looks at the history of the deal. Videographer: Iurii Panin
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Ta’Qali, Malta — Ukraine’s foreign minister called Russia’s top diplomat Sergei Lavrov a “war criminal” Thursday as they both attended an international summit in Malta, the latter’s first visit to an EU member since the 2022 invasion.

Ukraine’s Andriy Sybiga also accused Moscow of being “the biggest threat to our common security” as the two foreign ministers sat on the same huge table at a meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was also in Ta’Qali, near Valetta, for the talks, though officials said he had no plans to meet Lavrov.

“Russia is not a partner; it is the biggest threat to our common security. Russia’s participation in the OSCE is a threat to cooperation in Europe,” Sybiga told ministers from the 57-member body. 

“When Russians say they want peace they lie,” he said, adding: “Ukraine continues to fight for its right to exist.”

“And the Russian war criminal at this table must know: Ukraine will win this right and justice will prevail.”

‘Destabilizing’

Lavrov, who has been sanctioned by the European Union, had not visited an EU country since a December 2021 trip to Stockholm, again for an OSCE meeting, Russian media reported.

Sitting between the representatives of San Marino and Romania, he railed against the EU, NATO and in particular the United States.

He said the West was behind a “reincarnation of the Cold War, only now with a much greater risk of a transition to a hot one,” according to a transcript of his remarks from RIA Navosti.

He also accused Washington of military exercises in the Asia-Pacific region that sought to “destabilize the entire Eurasian continent.”

The OSCE was founded in 1975 to ease tensions between the East and the West during the Cold War, and now counts 57 members from Turkey to Mongolia, including Britain and Canada as well as the United States.

It helps its members coordinate issues such as human rights and arms control, but Lavrov at the last ministerial summit a year ago in North Macedonia accused the OSCE of becoming an “appendage” of NATO and the EU.

Ukraine has called for Russia to be excluded from the organization, and boycotted the Skopje summit over Lavrov’s attendance.

Summit host Ian Borg, Malta’s foreign minister, opened proceedings Thursday with a call for Russia to withdraw from Ukraine.

Blinken also accused Lavrov — who at that point was no longer in the room — of spreading a “tsunami of misinformation” and blamed Moscow for an escalation in Ukraine.

Many other participants railed against Moscow’s aggression at a delicate time for Kyiv.

U.S. president-elect Donald Trump has vowed to press for a quick deal to end the war, leaving Kyiv scrambling to obtain security guarantees from Western allies and supplies of key weaponry before the January inauguration.

‘Channels of communication’

In 2022, OSCE host Poland refused to let Lavrov attend their summit, and Poland’s minister questioned why Moscow was still allowed to be part of the organization.

A spokesman for Malta told AFP on Wednesday that while he faces an EU asset freeze, there was no travel ban on Lavrov, and he was invited to “keep some channels of communication open.”

Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Wednesday that a number of Western countries were “using this platform for their own interests,” arguing that the body had been “Ukrainianized.”

But German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock told reporters in Malta that the OSCE “stands for security and freedom and we will defend it.”

The OSCE has been paralyzed since the Ukraine invasion, as Russia has vetoed several major decisions, which require consensus.

The posts of secretary general and three other top officials have been vacant since September because of a lack of agreement over their successors.

Ambassadors have reached agreement on Turkish diplomat Feridun Sinirlioglu as new secretary general to replace Germany’s Helga Maria Schmid, a diplomatic source told AFP.

The ministers in Malta will also be seeking to agree which country will chair the OSCE in 2026 and 2027.

Russia had blocked NATO member Estonia from holding the chairmanship this year. Finland, which joined NATO last year, is up for the post in 2025.

The OSCE sends observers to conflicts as well as elections around the world. It also runs programs that aim to combat human trafficking and ensure media freedom.

But its efforts have been hampered by an inability to agree a budget since 2021.
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WASHINGTON — Thirty years ago, leaders of the United States, Britain Russia and Ukraine met in Budapest, Hungary, and signed a memorandum that provided security assurances to Ukraine in exchange for it giving up its nuclear arsenal, then the world’s third largest.

Today, nearly three years after Moscow launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Ukrainian officials are calling the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances “a monument to short-sightedness in strategic security decision-making” and seek NATO membership for their country.

Presidents Leonid Kravchuk of Ukraine, Boris Yeltsin of Russia and Bill Clinton of the U.S., along with British Prime Minister John Major, signed the memorandum on December 5, 1994.

Steven Pifer, a veteran diplomat who served as U.S. ambassador to Ukraine from 1998 to 2000, helped negotiate the memorandum.

“In that document, basically, the United States, Britain and Russia committed to respect Ukraine’s sovereignty, independence and existing borders, and committed not to use force or threaten to use force against Ukraine,” Pifer told VOA’s Ukrainian Service.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine inherited the world`s third-largest nuclear arsenal and agreed to transfer all the nuclear munitions on its territory to Russia for dismantlement, and to decommission nuclear missile launch silos.

All parties to the memorandum agreed to “refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of the signatories to the memorandum.”

However, in 2014, Russia annexed Crimea and fueled a separatist movement in eastern Ukraine. In February 2022, it launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

In a December 3 statement marking the 30th anniversary of the signing of the Budapest Memorandum, Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry called the agreement “a monument to short-sightedness in strategic security decision-making.”

Clutching a copy of the memorandum after arriving in Brussels for a meeting of NATO foreign ministers, Ukrainian Foreign Affairs Minister Andrii Sybiha called the pact a reminder that any long-term decisions made at the cost of Ukrainian security are “inappropriate and unacceptable.”

“This document, this paper, failed to secure Ukrainian security and transatlantic security,” Sybiha said. “So, we must avoid repeating such mistakes. That’s, of course, why we will discuss with my partners the concept of peace through strength, and we have a clear understanding which steps we need from our friends.”

 
In its December 3 statement, Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry said, “The only real guarantee of security for Ukraine, as well as a deterrent to further Russian aggression against Ukraine and other states, is Ukraine’s full membership in NATO.”

That view was echoed by former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, now an opposition leader, in an interview with VOA.

“Please consider the signature on [an] invitation to [join] NATO as a continuing obligation of our partners, including the United States, on the Budapest Memorandum,” Poroshenko said.

“This is the precondition when Ukraine voluntarily gives up the third biggest nuclear arsenal in the world, and everybody said that if Ukraine now [had] this nuclear arsenal, there would be no war and no occupation,” he told VOA.

Russian officials accuse Ukraine and its partners of having violated the Budapest Memorandum by expanding NATO — which, they say, threatens Russia’s security interests.

Pifer recalled that in the early 1990s, Ukrainian officials asked what the U.S. would do if Russia violated the Budapest Memorandum.

“We said the United States will do things; we will take an interest,” Pifer told VOA. “However, we were clear: We said, ‘We’re telling you now — that does not mean we’ll send American military force to defend Ukraine.’ That’s why the document is the memorandum on security assurances, not security guarantees.”

Mariana Budjeryn, an author and senior research associate with the Project on Managing the Atom at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center, believes that Ukraine and its Western partners failed to fully recognize the Russian threat. Those were different times, she said.

“There was this narrative that Ukraine is a peaceful country and it’s not really threatening anyone, and it was to join the international community on good terms,” she told VOA. “The Cold War was over, the Soviet Union fell apart, and the whole issue of weapons, including nuclear weapons, became passé, became a thing of the past.”

After Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, Pifer and others called on the Obama administration to provide defense assistance to Ukraine to fulfill its obligations under the Budapest Memorandum.

“I thought the Obama administration should have done more in terms of providing defense assistance to Ukraine,” Pifer said. “But if you look at the last two and a half years, the Biden administration has provided well over a hundred billion dollars in military and financial assistance to Ukraine. That’s certainly consistent with what we were saying 30 years ago.”

Budjeryn noted that the nuclear weapons Ukraine inherited in 1991 did not amount to a “fully fledged nuclear deterrent that it could just grab and use to deter Russia.”

“It was a chunk of a nuclear arsenal developed by a different country, the Soviet Union, for the strategic purposes of that country. And the strategic kind of aim of the Soviet Union was to deter NATO and the United States,” she said.

“But ultimately, to have a credible nuclear deterrent, Ukraine would have needed to invest a lot more into an independent nuclear program, which it did not have,” Budjeryn said.

Budjeryn said Ukraine could have invested more in its conventional military capabilities after it signed the memorandum. In the end, “the main lesson for any country is that no single document, no matter how legally binding or well written and robust, is a sufficient basis for national security. You have to be able to really invest in your own defense and national security,” she said.

The Budapest Memorandum is not the only document Russia signed and violated, which raises questions about future agreements with Moscow, Pifer said: “It was also in the 1997 Russian-Ukrainian Treaty on Friendship, Cooperation and Peace. It was several other documents where the Russian government clearly said, ‘We recognize Ukraine in the borders of 1991. We will recognize and accept Ukrainian sovereignty and independence.’”

According to Budjeryn, there is a larger lesson for the global community.

“It’s a story about just how fragile our system of international law — of international agreements — is, and that its credibility, its existence, a continued existence, and its workings are as much dependent on states observing voluntarily, but also on states reacting adequately and sufficiently to violations,” she said.
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An operation by Ukraine launched on August 6 captured dozens of towns and villages and gained control of about 1,000 square kilometers in Russia’s Kursk region. Gradually, Russia has pushed Ukrainian forces out of about half of the territory they captured.  

Our correspondent spoke to experts about how the military situation in the region could affect the initial positions taken in future peace talks between Ukraine and Russia. 

See the full story here. 
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The U.S. and EU are urging Beijing to stop supporting Russia’s war machine. German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock visited China on Monday, asking China to stop backing Russia and to work for peace in Ukraine. Our correspondent spoke to experts: Can Western sanctions change Beijing’s position? 

See the full story here. 

 
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PARIS — France’s far-right and left-wing lawmakers joined together Wednesday to pass a no-confidence motion prompted by budget disputes that forces Prime Minister Michel Barnier to resign.

The National Assembly approved the motion by 331 votes. A minimum of 288 were needed.

President Emmanuel Macron has insisted he will serve the rest of his term, which ends in 2027. However, he will need to appoint a prime minister for the second time after July’s legislative elections led to a deeply divided parliament.

Macron, on his way back from a presidential visit to Saudi Arabia, said discussions about him potentially resigning were “make-believe politics,” according to French media reports.

“I’m here because I’ve been elected twice by the French people,” Macron said.

He was also reported as saying, “We must not scare people with such things. We have a strong economy.”

The no-confidence motion rose from fierce opposition to Barnier’s proposed budget.

The National Assembly, France’s lower house of parliament, is deeply fractured, with no single party holding a majority. It comprises three major blocs: Macron’s centrist allies, the left-wing coalition New Popular Front, and the far-right National Rally.

Both opposition blocs, typically at odds, united against Barnier, accusing him of imposing austerity measures and failing to address citizens’ needs.

Barnier, a conservative appointed in September, could become the country’s shortest-serving prime minister in France’s modern Republic.

In last-minute efforts to try to save his government, he called on lawmakers to act with “responsibility” and think of “the country’s best interest.”

“The situation is very difficult economically, socially, fiscally and financially,” he said, speaking Tuesday evening on national television TF1 and France 2. “If the no-confidence motion passes, everything will be more difficult and everything will be more serious.”

Speaking at the National Assembly ahead of the vote, National Rally leader Marine Le Pen, whose party’s goodwill was crucial to keeping Barnier in power, said, “We’ve reached the moment of truth, a parliamentary moment unseen since 1962, which will likely seal the end of a short-lived government.”

“Stop pretending the lights will go out,” hard-left lawmaker Eric Coquerel said, noting the possibility of an emergency law to levy taxes from January 1, based on this year’s rules. “The special law will prevent a shutdown. It will allow us to get through the end of the year by delaying the budget by a few weeks.”

While France is not at risk of a U.S.-style government shutdown, political instability could spook financial markets.

France is under pressure from the European Union to reduce its colossal debt. The country’s deficit is estimated to reach 6% of gross domestic product this year and analysts say it could rise to 7% next year without drastic adjustments. The political instability could push up French interest rates, digging the debt even further.
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PARIS — U.S. President-elect Donald Trump and U.S. first lady Jill Biden are among global dignitaries expected in Paris Saturday as the city’s iconic Notre Dame Cathedral reopens five years after a massive fire.

Trump’s visit to Paris is expected to be his first foreign trip since winning the election last month. U.S. President Joe Biden is not expected to attend.

It has taken five years, 2,000 artisans and workers, and hundreds of millions of dollars to restore the medieval Gothic masterpiece. It was nearly destroyed during a fire in April 2019.

French President Emmanuel Macron visited the restored cathedral Friday and said the reconstruction workers had participated in an unprecedented project.

Macron will join the archbishop of Paris, along with Catholic and other dignitaries, for official opening ceremonies Saturday. The cathedral will open its doors to the public on Sunday as part of weeklong reopening events.

Even covered with scaffolding and closed to visitors, Notre Dame has attracted hordes of tourists during the years of reconstruction. Manuele Monica, a visitor from Italy, said, “I can understand why people in the past created buildings such as this one, because it’s so huge. It’s really tall — like it’s going up in the sky.”

The event offers a short reprieve for France, which is facing pre-Christmas strikes, soaring debt and an uncertain political future.
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NATO chief Mark Rutte said Tuesday he is confident that whatever military aid allies can supply to Ukraine in the coming months will be provided, as he warned that Russia is again using the onset of winter as a weapon in its war in Ukraine.

Rutte told reporters in Brussels ahead of talks with NATO foreign ministers that there is a priority on protecting Ukrainian energy infrastructure and ensuring Ukrainian forces have the air defenses necessary to defend against Russian attacks.

In addition to the war in Ukraine, the foreign ministers are also discussing what Rutte said was an “escalating campaign” of Russian hostile actions toward NATO countries, including acts of sabotage and cybercrimes.

Ukraine’s military said Tuesday it shot down 29 of 50 drones that Russia launched in its latest round of overnight attacks.

The intercepts took place over the Chernihiv, Donetsk, Kharkiv, Khmelnytskyi, Kyiv, Mykolaiv, Poltava, Sumy and Ternopil regions, the Ukrainian air force said.

Officials in Kharkiv reported damage to a business from a downed drone, while officials in Sumy said Russian shelling damaged several buildings.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said Tuesday it shot down 24 Ukrainian drones overnight, and another 11 drones early Tuesday.

Officials in Russia’s Ryazan region said a drone damaged four houses, but caused no casualties.

Ukrainian drones were also shot down over the Rostov, Bryansk, Belgorod, Krasnodar, Kursk and Kaluga regions, the ministry said.
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Beijing — Business sentiment among German companies in China is at an all-time low, a German business lobby group said on Wednesday, as they face rising Chinese competition and a slowing economy.

Over half of German companies said conditions in their industry had worsened this year, the German Chamber of Commerce in China said citing a survey, while only 32% forecast an improvement in 2025 – the lowest since records began in 2007.

“This year has been difficult for the majority of German companies, prompting a downward adjustment of their business outlook,” said Clas Neumann, chair of the German Chamber of Commerce’s east China chapter, while adding that 92% of German companies planned to maintain their operations in the $19 trillion economy.

Germany is China’s biggest European partner, and prominent German firms with large investments in China include automakers Volkswagen as well as BMW and auto parts supplier Bosch.

The German survey comes just a day after a British sentiment survey of companies operating in China painted a downbeat picture.

While foreign direct investment, seen as a signal of confidence in China, represents only 3% of the country’s total investment, it has been falling for two straight years.

The chamber said investing to keep up with local competitors was the primary motivation for 87% of the 51% of German companies planning to step up their investment in China over the next two years, an annual eight percentage point increase.

The chamber also said that companies were, for the first time, reporting that they were contending with a “Buy China” trend, with Chinese President Xi Jinping’s self-sufficiency drive “Made in China 2025” resulting in local customers opting to buy from local producers.

An official factory activity survey released on Saturday showed that new import orders for parts and components used in finished goods fell for an eighth consecutive month in October, while new orders expanded for the first time in seven months.

The chamber called on Berlin to place more emphasis on Beijing as a partner and revise its China strategy to better align with German industry’s desire to invest more in localization in China, over boosting exports to the market.

Berlin opposed the European Commission’s tariffs of up to 45.3% on Chinese-built electric vehicles in an October vote. German automakers have heavily criticized the EU measures, aware that possible higher Chinese import duties on large-engined gasoline vehicles would hit them hardest.

Volkswagen signaled last week that it was doubling down on its China investment by extending its partnership with Chinese partner SAIC by a decade, though it sold its operations in Xinjiang after years of mounting pressure.
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GENEVA — The United Nations on Wednesday sought $47 billion in aid for 2025 to help around 190 million people fleeing conflict and battling starvation, at a time when this year’s appeal is not even half-funded and officials fear cuts from Western states including the top donor, the U.S.

Facing what the new U.N. aid chief Tom Fletcher describes as “an unprecedented level of suffering,” the U.N. hopes to reach people in 32 countries next year, including those in war-torn Sudan, Syria, Gaza and Ukraine.

“The world is on fire, and this is how we put it out,” Fletcher told reporters in Geneva.

“We need to reset our relationship with those in greatest need on the planet,” said Fletcher, a former British diplomat who started as head of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) last month.

The appeal is the fourth largest in OCHA’s history, but Fletcher said it leaves out some 115 million people whose needs the agency cannot realistically hope to fund:

“We’ve got to be absolutely focused on reaching those in the most dire need, and really ruthless.”

The U.N. cut its 2024 appeal to $46 billion from $56 billion the previous year as donor appetite faded, but it is still only 43% funded, one of the worst rates in history. Washington has given over $10 billion, about half the funds received.

Aid workers have had to make tough choices, cutting food assistance by 80% in Syria and water services in cholera-prone Yemen, OCHA said.

Aid is just one part of total spending by the U.N., which has for years failed to meet its core budget due to countries’ unpaid dues.

While incoming president Donald Trump halted some U.N. spending during his first term, he left U.N. aid budgets intact. This time, aid officials and diplomats see cuts as a possibility.

“The U.S. is a tremendous question mark,” said Jan Egeland, head of the Norwegian Refugee Council, who held Fletcher’s post from 2003-2006. “I fear that we may be bitterly disappointed because the global mood and the national political developments are not in our favor.”

Project 2025, a set of conservative proposals whose authors include some Trump advisers, takes aim at “wasteful budget increases” by the main U.S. relief agency, USAID. The incoming Trump administration did not respond to a request for comment.

Fletcher cited “the disintegration of our systems for international solidarity” and called for a broadening of the donor base.

Asked about Trump’s impact, he said: “I don’t believe that there isn’t compassion in these governments which are getting elected.”

One of the challenges is that crises are now lasting longer – an average of 10 years, according to OCHA.

Mike Ryan, World Health Organization emergencies chief, said some states were entering a “permanent state of crisis.”

The European Commission – the European Union executive body – and Germany are the number two and three donors to U.N. aid budgets this year.

Charlotte Slente, Secretary General of the Danish Refugee Council, said Europe’s contributions were also in doubt as funds are shifted to defense:

“It’s a more fragile, unpredictable world [than in Trump’s first term], with more crises and, should the U.S. administration cut its humanitarian funding, it could be more complex to fill the gap of growing needs.”
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