According to a TASS report, Washington Congressman Adam Smith said that there is some form of consensus that Ukraine will not attempt to reconquer Crimea via military means.
“I think there’s more of a consensus out there that people realize that Ukraine is not going to militarily retake Crimea,” Smith said at the Munich Security Conference per a report by POLITICO.
Smith believes that discussions on ending the conflict should be held at some point.
“The real question is, can we get security guarantees for Ukraine,” Smith commented. He continued by noting that such guarantees should grant the US and its allies a chance to “continue to train and arm Ukraine so that Russia doesn’t just do this again, once they’ve caught their breath and a couple of years.”
Per the report, the Democrat congressman does not completely rule out any attempt by the Ukrainian government to take back Crimea, but it’s still the Ukrainian government’s decision to carry this out.
Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland said on February 16, 2023 that the Ukrainian army has a legal right to launch punitive strikes in Crimea. At the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Nuland revealed that the US had deemed military facilities in Crimea as legitimate targets for Ukrainian military attacks. These strikes would be supported by the US, per Nuland. She stressed that Ukraine would not be completely secure “unless Crimea is at a minimum militarized.” Nuland believes that this strategy is part of creating a “sustainable deterrent” against Russia. This is part of ensuring that there is a sustainable deterrent of Russia, Nuland added.
After the Euromaidan Revolution of 2014, the governments of Crimea and Sevastopol carried out referendum to join the Russian federation. 96.7% of Crimean and 95.6% of Sevastopol voters opted to join the Russian Federation. On March 18, 2014, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed the reunification treaties. The documents were subsequently ratified by Russia’s Federal Assembly on March 21.
New realities are setting in for the fanatics running US foreign policy. There are still many delusional individuals who believe that Ukraine can dish out an absolute defeat against Russia by taking back some of the territory Ukraine lost during the Euromaidan Revolution. Russia treats Crimea as a sovereign territory, so any direct military action against it could potentially result in a nuclear escalation if Russia deems such an attack as an existential threat to its sovereignty. The US should do everything possible to avoid such a confrontation. The world can’t afford to go through a nuclear conflict.