"When it became convenient to him, President Putin broke it and first took Crimea. "They were afraid to give them up because they thought that's the only thing that protected them from an expansionist Russia," Mr Clinton said. "I knew that President Putin did not support the agreement President Yeltsin made never to interfere with Ukraine's territorial boundaries - an agreement he made because he wanted Ukraine to give up their nuclear weapons. These commitments were broken in 2014, when Russia invaded and annexed Crimea, and further shattered when it began a wider war against Ukraine last year. The United States was also party to a related agreement later in the same year, which included Russian commitments to respect Ukraine's territorial integrity. In January 1994, Mr Clinton signed a tripartite agreement with the then presidents of Russia, Boris Yeltsin, and Ukraine, Leonid Kravchuk, to eliminate the arsenal of strategic nuclear weapons which remained on Ukrainian soil after the fall of the Soviet Union. And none of them believe that Russia would have pulled this stunt if Ukraine still had their weapons," he said. "I feel a personal stake because I got them to agree to give up their nuclear weapons. Mr Clinton addressed the ongoing war in Ukraine when he spoke to Prime Time about his role in the Northern Ireland peace process and assessed recent developments. Mr Clinton suggested that Russia would not have invaded Ukraine if Kyiv still had its nuclear deterrent. Former US president Bill Clinton has expressed regret in an RTÉ interview about his role in persuading Ukraine to give up its nuclear weapons in 1994.
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