WASHINGTON – The United States announced a formal policy reaffirming its rejection of Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea Peninsula, with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo blasting Moscow for seeking “to undermine a bedrock international principle shared by democratic states.”
Pompeo’s announcement July 25, released an hour before his scheduled testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, followed recent conflicting remarks by President Donald Trump and administration officials about whether Washington was moving to reverse a policy in place since Russia’s seizure of the Black Sea peninsula in 2014.
