The lesson of Budapest is this: Ukraine needs permanent, physical, and verifiable security guarantees—up to and including a European no-fly zone in the west and readiness to deploy a reassurance contingent. Europe must table its own peace plan — based on Ukraine’s Peace and Victory Plans — with a clear theory of victory, metrics, and phases, in close coordination with NATO and the EU. The end-state must be full restoration of the 1991 borders and Ukraine’s integration into the EU and NATO.
This was stated in a comment to Guildhall by Reinier van Lanschot, Member of the European Parliament from the Netherlands and a member of the Committee on Security and Defence.
“The Budapest Memorandum existed only on paper. We must finally learn the lesson we failed to learn in 2014 and 2022 and provide Ukraine with permanent, credible, and physical security guarantees. These should include measures that already now create acceptable conditions for a ceasefire by exerting pressure on Putin—for example, establishing a European-led no-fly zone over western Ukraine—as well as readiness to enter Ukraine tomorrow to defend that ceasefire (through a sizeable reassurance force),” the politician said.
Van Lanschot also outlined the key steps Europe must take to ensure Ukraine’s security: “Europe needs to develop, articulate, and implement an alternative peace plan to replace the Trump plan—based on Ukraine’s Peace and Victory Plans. A genuine ‘theory of victory’ with clear goals, indicators, and milestones is required to lay the conditions for a credible ceasefire backed by security guarantees, leading to a just, comprehensive peace consistent with full restoration of Ukraine’s 1991 borders and integration into the EU and NATO. This discussion should be led by Kaja Kallas as High Representative/Vice-President of the European Commission, in coordination with NATO”.
Earlier, Sebastian Schäfer, a Bundestag member from the Greens, chair of the Budget Committee and deputy chair of the “Bundeswehr Special Fund” committee, likewise stated that the West bears responsibility for the breach of the Budapest Memorandum. Ukraine—having surrendered the world’s third-largest nuclear arsenal in exchange for security and territorial-integrity assurances—is now paying for Western countries’ failure to intervene when it mattered. NATO states must act now and take serious decisions that will enable Ukraine to withstand Russian aggression.
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