1994 White House State Visit of President Kuchma of Ukraine

From the Background Briefing by the U.S. Press Secretary in preparation the day before the visit:

....First, let me say this is obviously an important visit for us. Our Ukraine policy over the last 23 months has taken many twists and turns. I think it's fair to say that we began this administration with a somewhat strained relationship with Ukraine, a relationship that was focused primarily on nuclear issues, but a relationship that President Clinton felt from the very beginning was one of the key foreign policy relationships that he had to develop as President.

And if you look at the two central policy issues of this visit, the nuclear future between us and the economic future of Ukraine and what the United States can do to support that future, I think you'll see a lot of growth and a lot of expansion in our relations over the last two years.

To begin with the nuclear issue, coming into this administration the President had a clear goal. He inherited a situation from the last administration, from events in the aftermath of the collapse of communism where there were four countries that had nuclear weapons on their soil. Our intention all along has been to reduce that to one. And the President was able to use the very generous appropriations from the Congress -- the Nunn-Lugar appropriations -- and very intensive diplomacy over this time period to try to move Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus to a point where they would declare themselves, commit themselves to a nonnuclear status....