Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Wednesday that President Trump will never recognize Russia as having legitimate sovereignty over Crimea, and called on Russia to end its occupation of that territory.
“Through its actions, Russia has acted in a manner unworthy of a great nation and has chosen to isolate itself from the international community,” Pompeo said in a Wednesday statement.
Pompeo’s rebuke affirmed the bipartisan U.S. position since the Ukraine crisis began in 2014. But the statement, issued ahead of an appearance before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, follows reports that President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed the possibility of changing that policy during their recent summit in Helskini.
“Russia, through its 2014 invasion of Ukraine and its attempted annexation of Crimea, sought to undermine a bedrock international principle shared by democratic states: that no country can change the borders of another by force,” Pompeo said. “The United States calls on Russia to respect the principles to which it has long claimed to adhere and to end its occupation of Crimea.”
Putin denies annexing Crimea, just as the Russian government denies a military involvement in the fighting in eastern Ukraine.
[Susan Rice: ‘Disgraceful’ for Trump to blame Obama for Russia’s annexation of Crimea]
“The joining of Crimea to Russia is not an annexation,” Putin told Fox News host Chris Wallace. “In democratic governance, the free manifestation of a person’s will is a referendum, and the people of Crimea went to referendum and voted for joining Russia. If this is an annexation, what is democracy, then?”
Ukrainian officials dismissed that vote as “a referendum at gunpoint,” a position shared by Western powers. Boris Nemtsov, a Russian opposition figure who was murdered while compiling a report denouncing Putin’s Ukraine policy, quoted a Russian military veteran who participated in the operation as confirming the Western view.
“The militia gathered the deputies [of the Supreme Soviet of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea], I don’t know how else to say it,” said the official, Igor Girkin. “It was to force them into the building, so they would adopt” a decision on conducting the referendum on the entrance of Crimea to the Russian Federation.
Putin reportedly told Russian diplomats that he and Trump discussed the idea of holding a second referendum in Crimea, the results of which might lead the United States to recognize Russia’s grip on the region. But Pompeo’s statement would seem to preclude that scenario.
“In concert with allies, partners, and the international community, the United States rejects Russia’s attempted annexation of Crimea and pledges to maintain this policy until Ukraine’s territorial integrity is restored,” he said.
