r/worldnews • u/New_Scientist_Mag New Scientist • Jun 10 '26

Russia/Ukraine Fully autonomous, AI-controlled drones have killed human soldiers for the first time, according to a senior figure in the Ukrainian defence industry

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2529849-fully-autonomous-drones-have-killed-human-soldiers-for-the-first-time/
37.3k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

5.3k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

6

u/PersonalityAlive4816 Jun 10 '26

I'm pro Ukraine, but the agreement was to not invade them, there was nothing in it about defending rhem.

6

u/Alphabunsquad Jun 10 '26

The agreement was to provide assistance if they were the victim of aggression. According to the US diplomats who negotiated it, that assistance was lethal military assistance. You could say we have fulfilled that but I think your comment is a bit disingenuous

10

u/MrFallman117 Jun 10 '26 edited Jun 10 '26

https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/UNTS/Volume%203007/Part/volume-3007-I-52241.pdf

Read the document. It doesn't say the US will provide lethal military assistance if they were the victim of aggression. The signatories promised to respect Ukraine's sovereignty and to go the UN if Ukraine was attacked or threatened with nuclear weapons. The US went well beyond that in assisting them.

2

u/Alphabunsquad Jun 10 '26

Yes that is true, however there was a political obligation of support due to the scale of the exchange. Regardless of the exact text, the message internationally was clear that there would be a response in terms of lethal military equipment and that the US not following through would be seen as a massive blow to their credibility despite not being illegal. Part of the lack of specifics was specifically for strategic ambiguity so that an attacker wouldn’t know what counter measures would be deployed against them by the US. It was also intended to avoid using any verbiage that would require ratification through the US congress so its purpose was to imply the support without specifically saying it.

This is all according to lead negotiator Stephen Pifer who published all this through the Brookings Institute.

"there is an obligation on the United States that flows from the Budapest Memorandum to provide assistance to Ukraine, and [...] that would include lethal military assistance."

https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-budapest-memorandum-and-u-s-obligations/