Trump: “Crimea will stay with Russia”; Zelenskyy: “Only Ukrainians decide our territories”
US President Donald Trump has reiterated in a Time magazine interview that he believes Ukraine’s NATO ambitions triggered Russia’s military aggression. He also stated that he considers Crimea permanently lost to Ukraine.
The US President Donald Trump“I think what caused the war to start was when they started talking about joining NATO,” the US leader said.
He also made it clear that he considers Crimea permanently lost to Ukraine.
“Crimea will stay with Russia,” Trump declared.
Trump has previously suggested – when commenting on a Ukrainian proposal to purchase American Patriot air defense systems – that it was Ukraine that “started the war.”
Time did not provide more complete quotes.
Donald Trump’s statements contain factual errors. At the time of Russia’s military aggression in February 2014, Ukraine had no aspirations to join NATO. Since 2010, under President Viktor Yanukovych, Ukraine had adopted a non-aligned status, formally renouncing its pursuit of NATO membership.
This position remained unchanged even after Yanukovych left Ukraine during the Euromaidan revolution in February 2014. The interim government led by Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk initially maintained a non-aligned stance, stating that Ukraine had no immediate plans to join NATO.
However, the situation began to shift following Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the escalation of hostilities in Eastern Ukraine. These events prompted a reevaluation of Ukraine’s security policies. In August 2014, Prime Minister Yatsenyuk announced intentions to seek NATO membership. By December 2014, the Ukrainian parliament voted to abandon the country’s non-aligned status, citing the need for stronger security guarantees in the face of external aggression.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has acknowledged during a conversation with journalists, as reported by Interfax-Ukraine, that Ukraine currently lacks sufficient weapons to reclaim temporarily occupied Crimea. However, he emphasized that the international community possesses various tools to pressure Russia on territorial issues.
“It is true what President Trump says. I agree with him that we do not currently have enough weapons. Weapons specifically, not people. Because our people are more important, the most important thing. But saying we do not have an army is not true,” the President of Ukraine noted.
He stressed that the world does have tools such as sanctions, economic pressure, and diplomatic pressure “to say this, to discuss territorial issues, but only after a complete and unconditional ceasefire.”
He also responded to US President Donald Trump’s statement that Crimea should remain Russian.
“Our position remains unchanged: only the Ukrainian people have the right to decide which territories are Ukrainian. The Constitution of Ukraine decides: all temporarily occupied territories – they are temporarily occupied, they all belong to Ukraine, to the Ukrainian people. Ukraine will not legally recognize any temporarily occupied territories,” Volodymyr Zelesnkyy stated.
Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda stated that the possible de jure recognition of Russian control over Crimea would become a “time bomb”.
“If we do what is being proposed and recognize Crimea as de jure Russian, it will be a time bomb that will keep exploding,” the president’s statement was cited by LRT.
Nausėda added that Ukraine itself, which has been attacked, must be asked what it thinks about this matter.
The Ukrainian delegation has handed over a response to the peace proposals from Donald Trump’s administration, including those on security guarantees, to the US delegation in London.
Zelenskyy has announced that Ukraine and its European partners presented “our vision on the proposals opened by the US” during a working meeting in London on April 23.
He stated that the proposals concern security guarantees, including alternatives to Ukraine’s NATO membership.
“There are absolutely constructive proposals, as I mentioned, including the contingent and the format of the Fifth Amendment [Article 5 of the NATO Treaty on collective defense – ed.]. Not the Fifth Amendment itself, but specifically those forces and protections as provided by the Fifth Amendment in NATO countries,” Zelenskyy added.
The counterproposal also clarified that Ukraine wants a ceasefire before any other actions are taken. The need for both sides to commit to a full and unconditional ceasefire is listed at the top of the proposal.
CNN pointed out that Ukraine also largely agreed to a number of the points in the initial US framework, including removing sanctions on Russia, which were put into place in 2014, which the Ukrainians say should happen gradually after the peace plan is enacted, Ukraine not joining NATO, the freezing of the frontlines, and Ukraine regaining control of the area around the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant.
While differences remain, officials said the steps Ukraine has taken to effectively engage in the talks are significant.
“For Ukraine to be willing to engage in talk about territory is huge, but if Trump does not think it is much of a concession, that is a problem,” the CNN’s source said.
On April 25, the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People – the highest representative body of the indigenous Crimean Tatar people of Ukraine – categorically rejected any proposals or actions aimed at recognizing the temporarily occupied territories of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol as Russian. In its statement, members of the Mejlis stated that these territories are an integral part of Ukraine within its internationally recognized borders.
The Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People warns that any attempts to recognize the temporarily occupied territory of the Crimean Peninsula as Russian – regardless of who makes them or for what purpose – would constitute:
- a gross violation of the Charter of the United Nations, the Helsinki Final Act, the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, numerous UN General Assembly resolutions, and other fundamental norms of international law;
- an encroachment upon the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine – a sovereign and independent state with clearly defined internationally recognized borders, including Crimea and all other temporarily occupied territories;
- contempt and disregard for the inherent rights of the indigenous Crimean Tatar people, including the right to self-determination and participation in all decision-making processes concerning their native land;
- justification of all crimes committed against the indigenous Crimean Tatar people during the years of colonial subjugation of Crimea by the Russian Empire;
- denial of the act of genocide committed against the Crimean Tatar people by the Soviet regime in 1944;
- encouragement of the policy of ethnocide against the Crimean Tatar people, carried out today by the Russian occupation authorities, starting from the first day of the temporary occupation of Crimea in 2014, in the form of systemic pressure on the indigenous Crimean Tatar people and repression against the residents of Crimea – Ukrainian citizens, ethnically and politically motivated persecutions of Crimean Tatars, the ban on the representative body of the indigenous Crimean Tatar people – the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people, religious persecutions, Russification and assimilation, destruction of cultural heritage, and the mass relocation of Russian citizens to the territory of Crimea with the aim of changing the demographic and ethnic composition of the population of the Crimean Peninsula;
- the creation of a precedent of impunity for the aggressor, where violations of internationally recognized borders of a sovereign state by the aggressor and the subsequent legitimization of the occupied territories by other countries will undermine the collective security system established after World War II, which is based on the principles of peaceful coexistence, sovereign equality, and the inviolability of state borders, as well as respect for fundamental human rights and freedoms.
The Mejlis highlighted that such disregard for international law will send a negative signal to states whose ruling regimes may also resort to the use of force and the occupation of other states’ territories, hoping for their subsequent legitimization.
- unwavering commitment to the struggle for the restoration of Ukraine’s territorial integrity and the right of the Crimean Tatar people to self-determination in the form of a national-territorial autonomy of Crimea within an independent Ukrainian state;
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categorical rejection of any attempts to recognize Crimea as Russian territory – neither de facto nor de jure, regardless of who makes such attempts;
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declaration of any agreements regarding the status of Crimea, concluded and accepted without the participation and consent of the Ukrainian state and the indigenous Crimean Tatar people, as illegal;
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reservation of the right to initiate international consultations with leading states and organizations (the UN, the EU, the Council of Europe, the OSCE, NATO) to prevent the legitimization of the occupation;
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Strengthening the efforts of the member countries of the International Crimea Platform and taking comprehensive steps towards the deoccupation andreintegration of the temporarily occupied territory of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol.
