An agreement by Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan that nuclear weapons of the former Soviet Union on the soil of those states would be destroyed or transferred to the control of Russia
The Lisbon Protocol bound four post-Soviet states to START I obligations and committed Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine to non-nuclear-weapon status.
Key Facts
- Date signed
- 23 May 1992
- Signatory states
- Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia, Ukraine
- Parent treaty
- START I (1991)
- NPT accession deadline met
- 1994
- Nuclear weapons removal completed
- 1996 (via 1994 Budapest Memorandum)
By the Numbers
Location
Cause → Event → Consequence
The dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left strategic nuclear weapons scattered across four newly independent states — Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Ukraine — creating an urgent need to establish clear legal succession to Soviet arms control obligations under the START I treaty.
On 23 May 1992 in Lisbon, Portugal, representatives of Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Ukraine signed the Lisbon Protocol, recognizing all four states as successors to the USSR under START I and committing Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty as non-nuclear-weapon states.
By 1994 all three non-Russian states had acceded to the NPT as non-nuclear-weapon states, and under the 1994 Budapest Memorandum — which provided security guarantees in exchange — all nuclear weapons were removed from Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine to Russian control by 1996.
Political Outcome
Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine renounced nuclear weapons and transferred them to Russia by 1996; all four states assumed START I obligations as Soviet successors.
Nuclear weapons of the former USSR dispersed across four independent states with unclear arms control obligations
Russia established as sole nuclear successor; Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine committed to non-nuclear status under NPT