US President Donald Trump's presidential Envoy for Special Missions Richard Grenell has stated that the nuclear weapons that remained on Ukrainian territory after the collapse of the USSR belonged to russia and claimed this to be an "uncomfortable fact".
Quote from Grenell: "Let's be clear about the Budapest Memorandum: the nukes were russia's and were leftovers. Ukraine gave the nukes back to russia. They weren't Ukraine's. This is an uncomfortable fact."
Steven Pifer, former US ambassador to Ukraine and nuclear weapons expert, responded by stating that Grenell is "flat wrong".
Quote from Pifer: "I helped negotiate Budapest Memorandum. Grenell is flat wrong. Nuclear warheads in Ukraine were ex-Soviet, not russian. Warheads in storage were in sole Ukrainian custody. ICBMs [intercontinental ballistic missiles] and bombers were eliminated in Ukraine except small number sent to russia for debt relief."
He advised Grenell to read the full story.
Earlier, former US president Bill Clinton expressed regret over his role in Ukraine's nuclear disarmament in the 1990s, suggesting that otherwise russia might not have launched its full-scale invasion.
In January 1994, Clinton signed a trilateral agreement with the then presidents of russia and Ukraine, Boris Yeltsin and Leonid Kravchuk, on eliminating the arsenal of strategic nuclear weapons that remained on Ukrainian territory after the collapse of the USSR.
In December of the same year, the United States also joined the Budapest Memorandum, which stipulated russia's obligation to respect the territorial integrity of Ukraine.
https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2025/03/26/7504568/These words of Grenell may mean that another member of the Trump administration is stupid and does not know history, or that they are doing this deliberately, repeating russian propaganda. In any case, it is very sad for Ukraine and for the world.
In Ukraine, the topic of nuclear weapons left over from the USSR is also quite popular in debates at all levels. Some people believe that Ukraine did not have the money and technical ability to service and use it anyway, while others believe that Ukraine, as one of the developers and manufacturers of these missiles and electronics, could adapt nuclear weapons and maintain it in working order. Now we will never know about this, as well as confirmation of rumors that Kravchuk personally received huge amounts of money at that time, disarming Ukraine.
But we should also not forget that it was the Ukrainians who elected the former communist and head of the Communist Party of the Ukrainian SSR Kravchuk as the first president of Ukraine, and not, for example, the nationalist Chornovil, as the Poles did in 1990, choosing Lech Walesa.
Nonetheless, both putin and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky probably understand the risks of a prolonged war. A protracted conflict could drag down the russian economy and risks “undesired escalation with the West,” while for Ukraine, Zelensky likely understands that the future of western assistance is uncertain, the report found.
Moscow also retains the momentum on the battlefield as a grinding war of attrition plays to russia’s military advantages and “will lead to a gradual but steady erosion of Kyiv’s position on the battlefield, regardless of any U.S. or allied attempts to impose new and greater costs on Moscow.”
The US intelligence community also continues to see a risk that putin may resort to nuclear weapons. “russia’s inability to achieve quick and decisive battlefield wins, coupled with Ukrainian strikes within russia, continues to drive concerns that putin might use nuclear weapons,” according to the assessment.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-03-25/russia-ukraine-see-unsatisfactory-ceasefire-worse-than-continued-war-us-saysMeanwhile, the strategic prospects for Ukraine are getting worse and worse every day.
European efforts to create security arrangements for Ukraine are shifting from sending troops to other alternatives as they face political and logistical constraints, and the prospect of russia and the United States opposing their plans.
Ukraine has long said that any peace deal would require firm security guarantees from the West to prevent any repeat of attacks by russia, which launched its full-scale invasion in 2022. French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who both visited the White House last month, have each suggested their countries could contribute thousands of troops to a future force. But they have also so far fruitlessly sought some form of "backstop" from Washington, without specifying what this entails.
Moscow says it will never agree to any proposal for NATO countries to send troops to Ukraine.
President Donald Trump, who has shifted U.S. policy abruptly towards accepting russia's narrative about the conflict, initially praised the British and French proposals to send troops and said he thought russia would agree to them. But lately American officials have sounded more sceptical. In an interview with podcaster Tucker Carlson last week, Trump envoy Steve Witkoff ridiculed the European proposals as "a posture and a pose".
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/europes-talks-ukraine-security-shift-sending-troops-2025-03-26/"The European Union is facing unprecedented threats - geopolitical instability and conflicts, cybersecurity risks and information manipulation, climate change and the increasing likelihood of natural disasters," the European Commission said, publishing a new Crisis Preparedness Strategy. Every resident of the European Union must be prepared to survive autonomously in crisis situations for at least three days.
https://commission.europa.eu/topics/preparedness_enWhen you read some court decisions, you understand why the authorities want to close public access to them. One such decision shows that the commander did not let a soldier go to the medical unit and the soldier died. For this, the commander was fined $400.
On March 17, the Sloviansk City District Court of Donetsk Oblast found the commander of the engineering and sapper unit of one of the mechanized battalions, Junior Sergeant Andriy K., guilty of negligent attitude to military service, which led to the death of his subordinate.
As indicated in the case materials, at about 10:00 p.m. on February 26, 2025, serviceman M. informed Andriy K. of the urgent need to go to the medical center due to heart problems.
However, Andriy K. refused to let the soldier go to the medical center.
As a result, soldier M. died during the night.
According to the death certificate of serviceman M., which was drawn up on February 27, the soldier's death occurred as a result of "acute coronary insufficiency."
https://sud.ua/uk/news/publication/326722-komandir-ne-otpustil-soldata-v-meditsinskuyu-chast-i-soldat-umer-chto-reshil-sudThe question of what a sick soldier was doing in the army apparently did not interest anyone at all...
