A WEEK AFTER TRUMP’S SECRET MEETING WITH PUTIN< RUSSIA SETS UP A PUPPET GOVERNMENT IN “LITTLE RUSSIA”

Washington, D.C. ­– U.S. Senator John McCain (R-AZ), Chairman of the Armed Services Committee, released the following statement today on Russian-backed separatists proclaiming a new state in Ukraine:

“Vladimir Putin’s ambition to restore the Russian Empire took another step forward today as Russian-backed separatists in Ukraine’s Donetsk region proclaimed an independent state and adopted the tsarist-era name of ‘Little Russia.’ The ultimate responsibility for this latest flagrant violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty lies squarely with Vladimir Putin’s Russia, upon whose leadership, financing, troops, and weapons the separatists are entirely dependent.

“This illegal proclamation of a Russian puppet state in eastern Ukraine also adds to Russia’s serial violations of the Minsk agreements. Through its aggressive behavior, Russia has demonstrated it does not seek the peace the Minsk agreements were designed to achieve. Instead, Vladimir Putin is calculating that the more Ukrainians his forces and his proxies kill, the more Ukrainian territory they will be able to seize. And the more Putin forces Ukraine to devote scarce resources to war rather than improving the economy, the more he can destabilize the government in Kiev and prevent Ukraine from realizing its Euro-Atlantic future.”