The United States cannot accept Russian invasion of Ukraine that has become the basis for the very stringent sanctions regime, and will “return” to the of Crimea after the Donbas conflict is settled, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said at a meeting with diplomats in Washington Tuesday, Dec. 12.
Tillerson noted that “when you invade another country and take their territory, we cannot – that cannot be left to stand.”
“And that is the basis for the very stringent sanctions regime that the U.S. and Europe imposed on Russia as a result of that invasion, and that regime will not change until Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is resolved and Ukraine’s territorial integrity is returned,” said Rex Tillerson.
He has stressed that at the moment, the U.S. is “engaged in attempting to break the logjam for east Ukraine to implement the Minsk accords.”
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“We will return to the issue of Crimea. I know that President Putin’s made it clear that that’s not on the table for discussion. It will be at some point. But today, we want to stop the violence in east Ukraine,” he concluded.