https://video.echelon.pl/videos/watch/9d4bd171-06d2-4e66-a5da-0e196c6dedcb In 2014 Marco Rubio reminds US politicians that in 1994 Ukraine signed the Budapest Memorandum agreement, in which "we guaranteed them, we assured their independence" and because of that they agreed to give up their nuclear weapons. Rubio also speaks about how abandoning Ukraine's assurances will impact the global non-proliferation efforts, because non-nuclear countries won't really believe in any assurances given by the nuclear powers. When the Soviet Union fell in the early 1990s Ukraine was left with the world's third largest stockpile of tactical nuclear weapons and strategic nuclear weapons on the planet. But they signed this agreement with the United States, the United Kingdom, and Russia that basically said, if you give up your nuclear weapons, we, these three countries that signed to this, will provide for your defence and assure you of your defence. And so Ukraine did that. They gave up these weapons. Well, now, this was signed in 1994. Twenty years later, one of the three countries that signed that agreements hasn't just not provided for their defence. They actually invaded them And I want to make a point on this for a second. Think about if you're one of these other countries around the world right now that feels threatened by your neighbours, and the United States and the rest of the world are going to you sand saying, listen, don't develop nuclear weapons. Don't develop nuclear weapons, South Korea. Don't develop nuclear weapons, Japan. Don't develop nuclear weapons, Saudi Arabia. We will protect you. We will watch out for you. What kind of lesson do you think this instance sends to them? I think the message this is sending to many nations around the world is perhaps we can no longer count on the security promises made by the free world. Perhaps we need to start looking out for ourselves. And that's why the Ukrainian situation is so much more important than simply what's happening in Europe. This has implications around the world. The video is an excerpt from Marco Rubio speech titled Rubio Delivers Senate Floor Speech On The Crisis in Ukraine, dated 25 March 2014. Wed, 22 Apr 2026 19:04:12 GMT https://validator.w3.org/feed/docs/rss2.html PeerTube - https://video.echelon.pl https://video.echelon.pl/client/assets/images/icons/icon-512x512.png https://video.echelon.pl/videos/watch/9d4bd171-06d2-4e66-a5da-0e196c6dedcb All rights reserved, unless otherwise specified in the terms specified at https://video.echelon.pl/about and potential licenses granted by each content's rightholder.