A strategic adviser to US President-elect Donald Trump said in an interview broadcast today that the new administration’s priority regarding Ukraine will be to establish peace and not to return lost territories, including Crimea.
Brian Lanza, a Republican Party strategist, told the BBC that the Trump administration would ask Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for a “realistic vision for peace.”
“And if President Zelensky comes to the table and says, we can have peace only if we have Crimea, he will show us that he is not serious. “Crimea is lost,” he said. “And if that’s your priority to take Crimea back and have American soldiers fight to take Crimea back, then you’re on your own.”
Lanza said the priority is “peace and to stop the killing.”
“What we’re going to say in Ukraine is, do you know what you’re seeing? What do you see as a realistic vision of peace? It is not a vision of victory, but a vision of peace. And let’s start having the honest conversation,” he said.
Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula in 2014 after an uprising toppled Ukraine’s pro-Russian president. More than two and a half years after launching their invasion, Russian forces control just under 20% of Ukrainian territory.
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