Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, annexed by Moscow in 2014, will stay with Russia, US President Donald Trump has said in an interview with TIME magazine.
Earlier this week, Trump ranted against Zelenskyy for refusing to ever recognize Crimea as Russian, claiming Ukraine should have fought for it in 2014 and blaming Zelenskyy for prolonging the war, reports news agencies.
“Well, Crimea went to the Russians. It was handed to them by Barack Hussein Obama, and not by me,” Trump said in the Time interview. “With that being said, will they be able to get it back? … [the Russian’s] have had their submarines there for long before any period that we’re talking about, for many years. The people speak largely Russian in Crimea,” he said.
“This wasn’t given by Trump,” the US president said. “Would it have been taken from me like it was taken from Obama? No, it wouldn’t have happened,” Trump told Time, claiming that if he were president in 2014, Russia would not have taken Crimea.
Last week, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio introduced a truce proposal that included recognition of Crimea as Russian territory as a step toward peace.
Trump has been pushing Ukraine for concessions to “get the peace deal by 100 days in office”.
“Crimea will stay with Russia. And Zelensky understands that, and everybody understands that it’s been with them for a long time. It’s been with them long before Trump came along,” Trump said during the interview with Time magazine published on Friday.
The comments were published shortly before Russian President Vladimir Putin began a meeting with Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff in the Kremlin.
Crimea is a strategic peninsula internationally recognised as Ukrainian territory.