The United States ambassador to Ukraine acknowledged on Monday that some sanctions on Russia could be lifted even if it does not relinquish control of Crimea, a peninsula on Ukrainian territory that international observers say was illegally annexed by the Kremlin in March.
U.S. Ambassador Geoff Pyatt said the Obama administration’s policy on Crimea remains that it is part of Ukraine, but he added that the annexed peninsula and sanctions on Russia—imposed to punish the Kremlin for supporting separatists in eastern Ukraine—"should be understood as separate baskets."
Sanctions will only be relaxed if Russia and President Vladimir Putin fully implement the Minsk Agreement, Pyatt said at an Atlantic Council event. That deal was reached in September and required Russia to remove all military equipment and personnel from Ukraine and release all prisoners. It did not include any provisions on Crimea.
Pyatt said Russia has failed to take any steps to honor the Minsk agreement, noting that Russian troops and equipment remain inside of Ukraine to support the separatists. Two more Ukrainian soldiers were killed over the weekend in a conflict that has claimed more than 4,300 lives.
"We’re not pursuing sanctions for their own sake," he said. "They’re intended to encourage a change in the Russian strategic calculus and a change in Russian activities."
"But they were also enacted in response to specific Russian actions and those actions have to be reversed."
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and other top officials in the country have urged the West to provide weapons to Ukrainian troops who have struggled at times against superior Russian arms and forces. Pyatt said the United States has offered about $118 million in nonlethal assistance and has a "commitment to do more," but would not confirm whether lethal support would be sent to Ukrainian forces.
The U.S. House passed a resolution on Thursday that in part called for military assistance to Ukraine, and similar legislation has been introduced in the Senate.
Pyatt expressed hopes that a renewed round of ceasefire talks planned for Tuesday would at least temporarily halt the fighting in eastern Ukraine. The Minsk agreement in September failed to achieve an end to hostilities.
"The end game is going to be played in the court of diplomacy," he said.
Russian has also been waging an information war to obscure its support for separatists in eastern Ukraine, according to reports. NATO has begun to mount its own counterpropaganda campaign, including a recent video that disputes the Kremlin’s claim that Ukrainian cities are full of "fascists."
"We in the U.S. government have only begun the process of thinking through how we are going to respond to [Russian propaganda]," Pyatt said.
A top Russian diplomat on Monday accused the United States of using sanctions in an attempt to depose Putin and institute regime change in Russia.