Former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the United States failed to do enough to stop Russia’s war and restore peace in Ukraine in 2014, European Pravda reported on 31 May.

Pompeo said US representatives could not prevent Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin’s plans or stop the full-scale Russian invasion in 2022 despite all efforts, Pompeo said during the second international Black Sea Security Forum on 30 May.

“I regret that there was not more done in 2014, that there was not more done in 2022, and that deterrence was lost,” he said. “And now the challenge is putting it back to a place. I was adjacent to the Minsk conversations (…) We’ve been at the negotiating table an awful lot, and there was no hammer.” 

Pompeo acknowledged that it was a “different time” and Russia’s aggression was “not as massive,” but he pointed out that the documents discussed during the Minsk negotiations were almost identical to what is being discussed now, according to the media report.

“That must remind us all: when Vladimir Putin lays down his weapons for a moment, you can’t go back to Russian gas,” Pompeo emphasised. “When Vladimir Putin lays down his weapons for a moment, there can’t be life as it once was.” 

The former Secretary of State assured that the US cannot afford to abandon Ukraine in its fight against Russian aggression.

Pompeo drew attention to the fact that many Republican Party members “expressed views that contradict America’s deep national interests on this issue.”

“But I think they all also know that, in the end, there is no walking away from this for the United States. It is not the case where you can say, ‘Godspeed, you’re on your own’. This will continue to chase all of us who believe in basic human dignity, property rights, all the indicia of sovereign nationhood that we will ultimately come to prevail,” Pompeo said.

During Pompeo’s tenure as US Secretary of State, the “Crimean Declaration” was adopted and published on 25 July 2018, ten days after the official meeting between Trump (during his first presidential term) and Putin in Helsinki.

That document stated that “Russia, through its invasion of Ukraine and attempt to annex Crimea in 2014, sought to undermine the fundamental international principle adhered to by democratic states: no country can change another’s borders by force.”

However, when Trump returned to power in 2025, controversial statements about Crimea appeared repeatedly. In April, the Trump administration reportedly handed Ukraine a one-page document in Paris, presented as a “final proposal” for peaceful settlement. Among other things, it allegedly stated that the US was ready to recognize Russia’s control over Ukrainian Crimea.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Ukraine does not recognize Russian occupation of Crimea. Trump criticized the statement, saying that “Crimea was lost many years ago” and that Zelenskyy’s words “harm peace negotiations.”

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