Making his visit to Russia on Tuesday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was full of demands for the Putin government, leading off with a demand that Russia “take action” to prove that there would be no interference in the 2020 US elections.



It’s not clear what such action would look like, though Pompeo said that the US “would not tolerate that,” and that it would make US-Russia relations even worse than they already are.



On top of this, Pompeo demanded that Russia unconditionally release the Ukrainian sailors arrested last year for violating Russian waters, and said Russia must work with Ukraine’s new president to make peace with the separatists in Eastern Ukraine.



Russia largely didn’t address these demands, but Russian FM Sergey Lavrov did fire back at Pompeo’s demand for Venezuela’s President Maduro to resign, saying that the Venezuelan people should decide on their future, and US meddling was undemocratic.





Author: Jason Ditz Jason Ditz is news editor of Antiwar.com. View all posts by Jason Ditz