This video is from March 9th, 2014, in the context of Russia's invasion of Crimea - not the most recent invasion which began in 2022. The quote is referring to the renewed debate at that time over Ukraine's acceptance of the Budapest Memorandum - a consequence of which was Ukraine surrendering its Soviet-era nuclear weapons to Russia - and accession to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in return for security guarantees including a promise to "respect the signatory's independence and sovereignty in the existing borders" from the USA, the UK, and Russia.
The debate was generally centred around the idea that had Ukraine not surrendered its nuclear weapons, Russia would not have dared to invade. Indeed, a day after the debate in the video, USA Today published a statement from Ukrainian MP Pavlo Rizanenko, who suggested that Ukraine should arm itself with nuclear weapons to defend itself from Russia.
Corbyn seems to be arguing here that there was a period between the 1994 memorandum and the 2014 invasion where Ukraine existed independently from NATO or Russia, and he wants to return to this point. An additional quote from the same debate is below, where he specifically mentions the memorandum:
I’m not supportive of Russian military action and I do think there has
to be a peace process and there has to be a process of
demilitarization of Ukraine and sticking to the original non-nuclear
agreement but I would also say this – the hypocrisy of the west is
unbelievable on this!
Where was the legality in the war in Iraq,
where was the legality of so many other interventions made elsewhere
and if one reads, very carefully, what all the Ukrainian forces are
saying, yes there is a very nasty far-right force in Ukraine at the
present time which is part of the government, there is also a more
liberal grouping in the Ukraine, there is also a very large Russian
grouping in the Ukraine who obviously have some loyalties toward
Russia.
Does Ukraine break up? That’s a matter for the Ukrainian
people but the idea that we should move the whole thing, in rhetoric,
towards some kind of military war against Russia seems to me, an
absolute disaster!
Towards the end of March, the US and Ukraine issued a joint statement reaffirming the memorandum, and emphasising the "important role of nuclear nonproliferation" in their relationship, which goes to show that the suggestions of arming Ukraine with nuclear weapons were taken seriously enough by governments that they felt the need to reassure observers that this was not on the cards.
