“More than anything, I am infuriated by the stupid, irresponsible statements of the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky, who suddenly took the floor and said that Ukraine could allegedly withdraw from the Budapest Memorandum and also reinvent its own nuclear bomb.

This is absolutely stupid, simply unbearable, fantastic nonsense, nothing more stupid has been declared by anyone in recent years from any normal country, ”said Lebedev.

Earlier, Zelensky said that he would initiate negotiations of the participants in the Budapest Memorandum on ensuring security. 

According to him, “if the consultations do not take place again or if there are no guarantees of security for our country as a result of them, Ukraine will have every right to believe that the Budapest Memorandum does not work, and all package decisions of 1994 will be called into question.”

In 1994, Ukraine, Russia, the United States and Great Britain signed the Budapest Memorandum, which served as an international agreement on security guarantees in connection with Ukraine's accession to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.

In accordance with the agreement, the nuclear arsenal on the territory of Ukraine was eliminated, and the nuclear powers pledged to guarantee Kiev's security.