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U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton said on Friday during a trip to Kiev that Ukraine had made progress in its efforts to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), but that it still had more work to do, reported Reuters.
The conflict in the Donbass region of East Ukraine continues to smolder, becoming one of the long-standing ‘frozen conflicts’ of the collapse of the Soviet Union. Both sides are exchanging fire resulting in continued military and civilian deaths.
The NATO comment was obviously a threat to Russia in a bid to get Moscow to change its behavior. Bolton also discussed American sanction policy against Russia.
“The sanctions remain in force and will remain in force until the required change in Russian behavior,” Bolton told a news conference after talks with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko.
“I underlined what President Trump said in Helsinki to President (Vladimir) Putin that it was the position of the United States that we did not recognize the illegal annexation of Crimea,” he said, referring to a U.S.-Russia summit in Finland last month.
“Our view and our policy remain as they have been,” added Reuters.
