BRUSSELS – The United States will consider the possibility of not recognizing Russian passports issued to citizens of Ukraine who reside in the temporarily occupied territories of Donbas, said Kurt Volker, the Special Representative of the U.S. State Department for Ukraine Negotiations.
On May 28, during an online conference, he called Russia’s decision to issue Russian passports to citizens of another country “a very provocative step.”
“We also will be looking at whether we are in a position to deny and not to recognize those passports as we did in a case of passports issued in Crimea already,” the U.S. diplomat said.
At the same time, Volker expressed the opinion that by taking these passports, “Ukrainians are going to be Russians.”
