February 2025

You Shall Not Bear False Witness

By Craig G. Bartholomew

The ten commandments have evocatively been described as the ethos of the good neighbourhood. And such they are. Take the ninth commandment, for example. No neighbourhood will be healthy if deceit and lies predominate. And, of course, this goes for towns, cities, countries and international relations as well. At the core of healthy societies and institutions is always truth. Our very lives depend on it.

This week is the three-year anniversary of Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. Few of us here in Europe can forget the long line of Russian tanks headed towards Kyiv. Few of us can forget the Russian atrocities – remember Bucha? – and endless war crimes that continue to be committed, not least the kidnapping of thousands of Ukrainian children forcibly relocated to Russia.

It is worth remembering that this is in complete violation of the “Memorandum on security assurances in connection with Ukraine’s accession to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons” signed in Budapest on 5 December 1994 by the Russian Federation, Ukraine, the UK and the USA. After the demise of the Soviet Union, Ukraine had an extensive nuclear stockpile of weapons. It agreed to transfer them to Russia in return for a guarantee of its security. The short “Memorandum” is vital – indeed shocking – reading and we make it available here. A few points worth noting:

The signatories commit to “respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine.”
The signatories affirm their obligation “to refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine, and that none of their weapons will ever be used against Ukraine except in self-defense or otherwise in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations.”
The signatories commit to refrain from “economic coercion designed to subordinate to their own interest the exercise by Ukraine of the rights inherent in its sovereignty and thus to secure advantages of any kind.”

Clearly Russia bore false witness when it signed this memorandum, evidenced by its repeated invasions of Ukraine.

Against tremendous odds in February 2022, Volodymyr Zelensky stood his ground and emerged as a kind of Churchillian leader against Russian aggression. He embodied the saying “cometh the hour, cometh the man.” For three long years the Ukrainians have held the Russians at bay with sustained help from the West. It has been a herculean effort.

We all long for peace, and not least the Ukrainians themselves. The daily slaughter is horrific and we long for it to stop. There is one very easy way to achieve this: for Russia to uphold the memorandum it signed, to cease its aggression, and withdraw its troops from sovereign Ukraine. The war would cease tomorrow.

Note that America also signed this memorandum. But now we hear from the White House that Zelensky is a “dictator without elections”, that Ukraine should never have started the war, and that Zelensky has a 4% approval rating. All of this is demonstrably and ridiculously false. It is a clear and very dangerous case of bearing false witness. This week at the UN the US opposed a resolution condemning Russia’s actions and supporting Ukraine’s territorial integrity drafted by the Europeans, voting with Russia and countries such as North Korea and Belarus.

All of this is dangerous for Ukraine and Europe, but also for the world. In the 2019 preface to his important 2001 book, After Victory: Institutions, Strategic Restraint, and the Rebuilding of Order After Major Wars (Princeton: Princeton University Press), John Ikenberry observes of the first Trump administration,

The surprising election of Trump has generated even greater and more profound questions about the workings and viability of the postwar liberal hegemonic order. Trade, alliances, the United Nations, multilateral cooperation, and democracy and human rights – in all these areas, Trump has threatened to reverse long-standing American positions. (xviii)

Ikenberry traces in detail the complex and multi-faceted institutions developed after World War II, including such things as a General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT, WTO), institutions which have led to decades of relative peace and prosperity. With Trump’s return to the White House those more profound questions appear to be strengthening. The rules based international order depends on truth and reliability. If it turns out now that the Budapest Memorandum of 1994 can be ignored by Russia and the USA, then we have crossed a massive red line. Order cannot survive without truth, and an inability to trust America will reap havoc internationally, within our countries and finally in our own towns. Law – note the negative way in which many of the ten commandments are expressed – is there to hold back chaos and evil. Violate it through bearing false witness and you open the door to chaos and violence. Little wonder that the prophet Isaiah (5:20) says so poignantly:

“Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!”

If our nations are one of the signatories to the 1994 memorandum, we should be proud of that, and do all we can to hold them to it. The future of Ukraine may well depend on it, and so much more.