A top Russian lawmaker said Wednesday that Russia will not entertain the idea of returning Crimea to Ukraine in return for an end to U.S. sanctions and said Russia never “took” Crimea in the first place.
“The issue of Crimea’s territorial sovereignty is closed,” said Leonid Slutsky, who chairs the State Duma Committee for Foreign Affairs, according to Tass, Russia’s state-owned news outlet. “The return of the peninsula to Ukraine in exchange for the abolishment of the U.S.’ anti-Russian sanctions is out of the question.”
The Trump administration said in the United Nations this week that sanctions against Russia would remain until Crimea is returned to Ukraine. Slutsky said Crimea decided on its own to “return” to Russia.
“In 2014, the Crimeans voluntarily decided to return to their ancestral territory — Russia,” he said. “We could not reject them then, nor will betray them now.”
President Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations, Jonathan Cohen, said the U.S. was equally insistent that the sanctions would not be dropped.
“We do not, and will not, recognize the Kremlin’s purported annexation of Crimea,” he said Tuesday. “We will never accept anything less than the full restoration of Ukraine’s control over its own territory, whether in eastern Ukraine or Crimea, including its territorial waters.”
