Directness without exchange

The Kremlin denies any possibility of a transaction with the United States related to a repeated referendum in Crimea in exchange for lifting sanctions, TASS reports . “There can be no talk of this,” the presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

Meanwhile, acting The official representative of the State Department, Mark Toner, said that the US sanctions introduced in connection with the annexation of Crimea will remain until Russia returned control over the peninsula. This was reported on the website of the department.

"Our sanctions associated with the Crimea will remain in force until Russia regains control of the Ukrainian peninsula," the Toner said on the occasion of the three -year anniversary of the annexation of Crimea.

“The United States does not recognize the“ referendum ”for Russia on March 16, 2014, nor its attempts by the annexation of Crimea and the ongoing violation of international law,” the representative of the State Department emphasized. “In Russia, they organized an illegitimate referendum in which the inhabitants of Crimea were forced to vote, and foreign troops armed to teeth occupied their lands.”

"Over the past three years, Russian occupation" authorities "in Crimea have been involved in the crime campaign to suppress dissent. Observers on human rights recorded violent disappearance, extra -court executions, torture and punitive psychiatric hospitalizations," Toner noted. "Crimean Tatars, ethnic Ukrainians, pro -Ukrainian activists and independent journalists are subjected Pursuit for political reasons and repression. "

On February 9, the representative of the White House Sean Spicer said that the United States did not intend to cancel sanctions against Russia related to the annexation of Crimea. "We are dealing with two packages of sanctions. One of them is in the Crimea. And I think that the US Permanent Representative Haley spoke out very clearly to the UN, that until Russia is leaving Crimea, these sanctions will not be reviewed," Spicier said.

On February 15, US President Donald Trump said that his predecessor Barack Obama showed excessive softness towards Russia in the issue of the annexation of Crimea. "Crimea was taken by Russia under the Obama administration. Was it not too soft towards Russia?" - wrote Trump on Twitter.

On March 4, a report by the State Department on the observance of human rights in the world was published. It noted that the Russian authorities directly or indirectly contributed to numerous violations of human rights both in Russia itself and in Ukraine.

Russia continues to support and supply the pro -Russian separatists in the Donbass and thereby bears responsibility for the death of "thousands of civilians", as well as violations of the rights of citizens of Ukraine, including in the annexed Crimea, the document says. These actions, among other things, contribute to a deterioration in the situation with human rights in Russia itself.

On March 7, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, following a meeting with the Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavel Klimkin, said that Washington would continue to support Kiev, and sanctions against Russia will remain in force.