Letter to the editor – Steve Metzler

Dear Editor 

Here’s a look back at some fairly recent history. 

In 1994, three years after the breakup of the USSR, one of its former republics voluntarily gave up what was then the world’s third largest stockpile of nuclear weapons. That country was Ukraine. 

Under the terms of the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, Ukraine agreed to turn over its entire nuclear arsenal to Russia, in exchange for security assurances from Russia, Great Britain, and the United States. 

But Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and full scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022 showed the world how much a security agreement with Russia is worth. The US, on the other hand, has lived up to its end of the agreement as we and our European allies have helped Ukraine fend off the 2022 Russian  invasion. 

Until now, that is. 

Now we are demanding that Ukraine turn over 1/2 of its natural resources to us as a condition for us to help it fight to remain a free country. (That seems a bit like seeing your neighbor’s house on fire and telling him you’ll not help unless he takes out a second mortgage and signs it over to you!)

Are we as a nation going to live up to our promises or are we going to turn on our friends? 

Steve Metzler

Hot Springs