MOSCOW, October 6. /TASS/. The Budapest Memorandum won’t stop the United States if Washington decides that Kiev needs nuclear weapons or "a dirty bomb," Head of the Lugansk People’s Republic’s Office in Moscow Rodion Miroshnik told TASS.

He pointed out that "it was the Americans who vigorously pushed through the Budapest Memorandum since their goal was to prevent a situation where ‘a monkey with a grenade who would run with it God knows where to’ would emerge." "And now, the US has trained the monkey well, pointing where to go to. This is exactly why Ukraine refused to comply with the memorandum because the possibilty of obtaining elements of nuclear weapons or ‘a dirty bomb’ can happen only with the permission, wish and help of a Western strategic partner, and the memorandum will not be an obstacle for them," Miroshnik said.

According to him, "after Ukrainian militants carried out strikes on the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant, it’s really hard to say that they [the Ukrainians] will strictly stick to the country’s non-nuclear status."

The Budapest Memorandum was signed by the leaders of Russia, Ukraine, the United Kingdom and the United States on December 5, 1994. Under the accord, Ukraine agreed to eliminate its nuclear arsenal, while Russia, the US and the UK guaranteed Kiev’s security. On February 10, 2022, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov pointed out after a meeting with his British counterpart Liz Truss that the Budapest Memorandum had been accompanied by a declaration, also signed by France and Ukraine, requiring that all parties should avoid violating the OSCE principles, including respect for the rights of ethnic minorities. Ukraine has ignored this document to this day.