Visiting with Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson quickly derailed any hopes of a US-Russia rapprochement emerging from last week’s meeting between Presidents Trump and Putin, insisting that US sanctions are going to remain on Russia.
Tillerson insists that the “fundamental” US goal in the region is to restore Ukraine to its pre-revolution size, and that Russia sanctions would be in place until that happens. This includes not only long-standing demands that Russia somewhat reverse Crimea’s secession from Ukraine and accession into the Russian Federation, but end the rebellion in Eastern Ukraine.
Poroshenko welcomed the move, and added that any failures in the ceasefire in Eastern Ukraine were the fault of the Russians. Both sides have accused one another of repeated violations, but in practice the ceasefire has largely been in place for the past year and a half.
The US position on the Minsk ceasefire is ultimately neither here nor there, since the US didn’t participate in the ceasefire’s negotiation, nor endorse it in any way in the first place. At the time, US officials criticized the effort by Germany and France to broker the deal with Russia.
Tillerson knows very well that Crimea will never return to Ukraine and the people of Eastern Ukraine will never succumb to the Kiev fascist junta. Only internationally supervised referendums should determine the status of these provinces, which are the most democratic ways to come out of the quagmire.
This idiot Tillerson got a great Russian award from the RU. government – so he must know how Russia is as a country. Now he turns around and backstabs RU because he wants The AmeriKraine to keep the war up so that they can kill more Russian folks in Donbass. Russia needs to put a warrant for his arrest like they have on Soros. Donbass needs a wanted poster hung on every tree – Dead or Alive.
Cut him some slack man, he’s just a puppet. LOL!!
If you haven’t heard of Russell Bentley yet, look him up.
I am sick of the same old dog and pony show as far as US policy regarding Russia. When Khrushchev put Crimea under Ukrainian administration, it was all under the Soviet Union anyway – so it didn’t make a difference. Now that Ukraine has a government that is antagonistic toward Russia, why wouldn’t Russia have acted on the vote of the people of Crimea to join with the Russian Federation? Why would Russia put its Black Sea fleet in danger? Only the thickest and densest Ukrainians will continue to support a Banderastan that is masquerading as a country.
So the same day Trump says the US needs to work “constructively” with Russia – whatever the hell that means – and one day after he decided to forget about the cybersecurity working group deal which Putin just talked about – Tillerson comes right out and says the sanctions remain and Crimea has to be returned.
At this point, it’s TOTALLY POINTLESS to even bother with what these two morons say. It changes from day to day and doesn’t mean anything anyway because it completely ignores reality and is most likely a pack of lies.
Actions, people, actions – that is all that matters. And no, making speeches and tweets are NOT actions.