UK treats Budapest Memorandum as worthless piece of paper – Ukraine's Ambassador

In her interview with LB.ua the Ambassador stressed that she informed British partners of the fact that the Ukrainian society was frustrated by the void political guarantees that the Budapest Memorandum provided. She added that due to the lack of security guarantees Ukraine was left face to face with the aggressor. “London sees the Budapest Memorandum as a political, not a legally binding document,” the Ambassador said. The diplomat noted that the main problem is that Russia disregards this proposal and since Russia, a signatory state of this document, violated its provisions, the memorandum turned into a worthless piece of paper. The Budapest Memorandum signed in 1994 by the UK, US, Russia, and Ukraine, stipulated security guarantees to Ukraine in exchange for giving up nuclear weapons. Galibarenko also said that Brexit influences the UK policy towards Ukraine: “First of all, I mean our numerous proposals on liberalisation of visa regime for the citizens of Ukraine. Unfortunately, the UK government is not ready to meet those proposals due to its plans to tighten control over labour migration,” Galibarenko said.