This would fly in the face of a 2018 declaration by then-U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo stating that the “United States reaffirms as policy its refusal to recognize the Kremlin’s claims of sovereignty over territory seized by force in contravention of international law” and “rejects Russia’s attempted annexation of Crimea and pledges to maintain this policy until Ukraine’s territorial integrity is restored.”

The Trump administration’s desire to broker an end to the fighting and killing in Ukraine is admirable, but the way that it has gone about it has been problematic, to say the least. According to the text of a U.S. peace proposal published by Reuters on April 25, the United States would—in exchange for a permanent cease-fire—provide de jure recognition of Russian control of Crimea and de facto recognition of Russian control of most of the Ukrainian regions of Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk, and Kherson.

The Trump administration’s desire to broker an end to the fighting and killing in Ukraine is admirable, but the way that it has gone about it has been problematic, to say the least. According to the text of a U.S. peace proposal published by Reuters on April 25, the United States would—in exchange for a permanent cease-fire—provide de jure recognition of Russian control of Crimea and de facto recognition of Russian control of most of the Ukrainian regions of Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk, and Kherson.

This would fly in the face of a 2018 declaration by then-U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo stating that the “United States reaffirms as policy its refusal to recognize the Kremlin’s claims of sovereignty over territory seized by force in contraventio