ROME — Russia’s war on Ukraine undermines global security, while standing to encourage nuclear proliferation, Archbishop Borys A. Gudziak of the Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy of Philadelphia told OSV News. “Besides causing barbaric bloodshed, untold devastation of civilian infrastructure, the displacement of 14 million forced migrants, the invasion of Ukraine — a blatant violation of international law — profoundly undermines the global effort for nuclear arms reduction,” said the archbishop in a Dec. 5 email from Rome regarding the 30th anniversary of the 1994 Budapest Memorandum. The agreement stipulated that the U.S., the United Kingdom and Russia would assure Ukraine’s sovereignty in exchange for that nation’s voluntary surrender of its Soviet-era nuclear arsenal. However, Russia’s 2014 and 2022 invasions of Ukraine have violated the agreement. As a result, said Archbishop Gudziak, “If a state that disarmed its nuclear weapons can be successfully invaded, in the future no nuclear country will ever consider such disarmament. Quite the opposite. Nations will seek to develop nuclear arsenals as deterrents against conquest.” He lamented that “before our eyes, civilizational principles at the basis of international law and nuclear non-proliferation are being profoundly compromised.” Ukraine’s security has profound global implications, he stressed. (OSV News)
