Press Releases

Yesterday, Congressman Gerry Connolly (D-VA), the President of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly and a senior member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, and Congressman Steve Chabot (R-OH), a senior member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and Ranking Member of the Asia, the Pacific, Central Asia, and Nonproliferation Subcommittee introduced the Ukrainian Territorial Integrity Act to codify the United States’ support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity in the face of Russian military action and potential annexation referenda. 

The Ukrainian Territorial Integrity Act would prohibit the United States Government from recognizing any potential referenda in Russian-occupied, sovereign Ukrainian territory. The legislation is based on Connolly and Chabot’s Crimea Annexation Non-Recognition Act, which was introduced following Russia’s illegal invasion and annexation of Crimea in 2014 and which passed the House 427-1 in March 2019.

“As President Biden has made clear, the United States will never acquiesce to Russia’s unprovoked and illegal invasion, occupation, and annexation of Ukraine’s sovereign territory,” said Connolly. “Still, we must repeat time and time again, for however long it takes, that we will never recognize any sham Russian annexation of Ukrainian territory – not today, not tomorrow, not ever. Not in Crimea, and certainly not now in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. I want to thank my friend Steve Chabot for his longstanding partnership on this issue, and I look forward to working with him to get this vital legislation signed into law.”

“The United States cannot recognize Russia’s desire to annex Crimea, the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, or any part of Ukraine,” said Chabot. “The principle of territorial integrity has served as the foundation for peace in Europe for decades. If Vladimir Putin shows that his unprovoked war achieves his territorial ambitions, he will damage that principle even more than he already has. I would like to thank my friend, Gerry Connolly, on his tireless work for the people of Ukraine. The United States must never legitimize Russia’s war by blessing its conquests.”

Full text of the Ukrainian Territorial Integrity Act is available  here.