Russian Foreign Ministry: Crimea will not be returned to Ukraine

Russia will not hand back control of Crimea to Ukraine, Russia's Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday, responding to comments from the White House that the United States expected the Black Sea peninsula to be returned.

"We don't give back our own territory. Crimea is territory belonging to the Russian Federation," Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told a news briefing.

On Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told reporters that U.S. President Donald Trump expects Russia to return the Crimea peninsula to Ukraine, brushing off accusations that the U.S. president was being soft on Russia.

The White House statement comes amid a media storm that accompanied the resignation of National Security Adviser Michael Flynn over his contact with Russian diplomats before Trump took office.

Spicer said that Russia seized Crimea under President Barack Obama administration, and that Trump's appointed ambassador to the U.N., Nikki Haley has “strongly denounced the Russian occupation.”

"President Trump has made it very clear that he expects the Russian government to de-escalate violence in the Ukraine and return Crimea," Spicer said at the daily news briefing on Tuesday. “At the same time, he fully expects to – and wants to – get along with Russia."

“Crimea is a part of Ukraine. Our Crimea-related sanctions will remain in place until Russia returns control of the peninsula to Ukraine,” Haley had said at her first U.N. Security Council meeting on Feb. 3.

Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, prompting the United States and European Union to impose sanctions on Russia, plunging Western relations with the Kremlin to their worst levels since the end of the Cold War.