Ukraine ‘will keep fighting rather than give up Crimea’
Kyiv believes the risk of the US pulling out of peace talks is less than the risk of accepting Moscow’s control over the peninsula, which would set a dangerous precedent.
For President Trump, the solution to the war in Ukraine is extremely simple: Kyiv should recognise the realities on the ground and put aside its objections to the Kremlin’s land grab. For many Ukrainians, though, Trump’s demands are not only unrealistic but a threat to the very existence of their country.
As he pushes for a peace deal before his 100th day in office, Trump has taken a sledgehammer approach to diplomacy, threatening to walk away from negotiations and attacking President Zelensky’s refusal to acknowledge Russian rule in Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula that was annexed in 2014.
Trump wrote on Truth Social: “It’s inflammatory statements like Zelensky’s that makes it so difficult to settle this War.” He said that Crimea had been “lost years ago” and its status was “not even a point of discussion”.
For Kyiv, the recognition of Russia’s seizure of Crimea would set a “dangerous precedent” and only encourage President Putin’s appetite for Ukrainian land, according to Volodymyr Fesenko, a political analyst who is seen as close to Zelensky’s administration.
Although Trump’s peace proposal has not been published by the White House, a draft copy that was seen by Axios, an American media outlet, says that it would involve Washington formally recognising Russian control over Crimea and acknowledging its de facto rule in four regions in the east and south of Ukraine.
Fesenko said: “If we have to choose between recognising Crimea as Russian and the United States withdrawing from the negotiation process, then Ukraine is more likely to be prepared for the US to pull out of the talks. For Ukraine, this is the lesser of two evils.
“There are potential risks for Ukraine in this. But we must understand that the risk of recognising [Russian control of] Crimea is much greater and more long term than the risk of the United States withdrawing from the negotiation process. Crimea is a very serious and very fundamental issue for us. If the Americans agree to this, then after some time Putin will almost inevitably demand recognition of the rest of the annexed territories.”
In his post, Trump said Zelensky was not being asked to recognise Crimea as Russian territory. However, he suggested that he expected some kind of commitment from Zelensky that Ukraine would no longer challenge the Kremlin’s rule over the peninsula.
Trump wrote: “If he wants Crimea, why didn’t they fight for it 11 years ago when it was handed over to Russia without a shot being fired?” He also appeared to repeat one of Putin’s justifications for seizing Crimea, writing that it had been home to Russian submarine bases “for many years”.
Putin has said that Russia was forced to seize Crimea to prevent Sevastopol, the home of its Black Sea fleet, from falling under NATO’s control after a pro-western government came to power in Kyiv in 2014.
Tamila Tasheva, an MP who was Zelensky’s permanent representative for Crimea until last year, warned that “trading territory for a ceasefire” would not bring a lasting peace. She said: “On the contrary, it could serve as a foundation for renewed aggression. A precedent of conceding land to an aggressor would have far-reaching consequences for both regional and global security. The past 11 years of the occupation [of Crimea] have shown that partial concessions do not lead to de-escalation. Russia does not interpret them as compromise but rather as weakness.”
Fesenko said that Trump’s threats and pressure on Ukraine could be part of a “psychological attack” by the White House aimed at maximising concessions from Kyiv quickly. “So we have to wait it out, and hold out until Trump’s mood changes,” he said.
Although Zelensky has admitted that Ukraine is not at present strong enough to liberate Crimea and other Russian-occupied territories by force, he has said Kyiv will strive to return them through diplomatic efforts. He has also said Ukraine will discuss wider issues on how to resolve the war only after a full ceasefire – a proposal that Moscow has not agreed to.
Crimea has held strategic importance in Europe since the time of ancient Greece. Catherine the Great’s Russian Empire won the territory in a war with the Ottoman Empire in the late 18th century and the peninsula was the setting of the Crimean War in the 1850s. The Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev transferred Crimea from the Russian Soviet Republic to the Ukrainian Soviet Republic in 1954. It is recognised as a part of Ukraine by a large majority of nations to this day.
Even if Ukraine wanted to hand over Crimea to Russia, there would be significant legal obstacles. The Ukrainian constitution says Crimea is an inseparable part of Ukraine and the government has no legal right to sign it away without a two-thirds majority vote in parliament and the approval of the Ukrainian people in a referendum. Another complication is that neither referendums nor elections can be held under martial law, which was introduced in Ukraine after Russia’s invasion in 2022.
In an apparent response to Trump’s comments, Zelensky wrote: “Ukraine will always act in accordance with its constitution.” He also posted on social media a “Crimea declaration” from 2018 by Mike Pompeo, who was then Trump’s secretary of state, which said Washington “rejects Russia’s attempted annexation of Crimea”.
Oleksandr Merezhko, an MP who heads the Ukrainian parliament’s foreign affairs committee, said it was possible that Trump was putting forward “absurd” demands as a deliberate negotiating tactic and it was “all a pretext to walk away from negotiations and to blame Ukraine instead of Russia”.
Although the White House peace plan is reported to say that Ukraine would get “a robust security guarantee” from its allies, there were no details on how a peacekeeping operation would function and no mention of any direct involvement by the US. It also ruled out NATO membership for Ukraine. Merezhko said: “We need security guarantees because without them this is a just a delayed death for us. We need a guarantee of our survival.”
Unsurprisingly, Ukraine has been reluctant to even discuss the plan, under which sanctions against Russia would be lifted. In return, apart from the vague security guarantees, Kyiv would get back a small part of land that Russia has occupied in the Kharkiv region, unimpeded passage of the Dnipro river and promises of compensation and assistance to rebuild.
Trump’s abrupt reversal of the Biden administration’s support for Kyiv in favour of improving ties with Russia has made him deeply unpopular in Ukraine. His efforts to pressure Zelensky on Crimea have now provoked open contempt. But not everyone is ready to write off Trump and his administration just yet. Merezhko said: “Of course we are not going to give up on the United States, because the situation can change. We need to work with Trump. Who knows, maybe he will come to his senses at some point.”
The Times
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