territory of #Crimea and #Sevastopol, which is an integral part of #Ukraine.

In particular, they noted that the #Mejlis does not accept attempts to recognize #Crimea as #Russian either #de_facto or #de_jure, and will also consider illegal agreements on the status of #Crimea concluded without

"Its critical that this deal is signed."

The minerals agreement doesn’t spell out any specific security guarantees, but US officials have said that by binding Ukraine to the US through economic ties, that would provided a #de_facto security shield. 😲