A former adviser to President-elect Donald Trump has said that the new administration will focus on achieving peace in Ukraine rather than helping the country regain the territories occupied by Russia. This is reported by the BBC.
“If President Zelensky comes to the table and says that we can only have peace if we return Crimea, it will show that he is not serious”, – he said.
Trump’s spokesman distanced the president-elect from these statements, noting that Lanza “does not speak for him.”
Russia occupied the Crimean peninsula in 2014. Eight years later, it launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine and occupied territories in the east of the country.
The president-elect has consistently emphasized that his priority is to end the war and stop what he characterizes as the depletion of U.S. resources provided in the form of military aid to Ukraine. However, he has not yet revealed how he plans to achieve this.
Lanza, a political adviser to Trump during his 2016 and 2024 campaigns, did not mention Ukraine’s eastern territories, but called the return of Crimea from Russia unrealistic and “not a U.S. goal.”
“When Zelenskiy says we will stop these hostilities only when Crimea is returned, we have news for President Zelenskiy: Crimea is lost”, – he said on the BBC World Service’s Weekend program. “And if your priority іs to get Crimea back and get American soldiers to do it, you’re on your own”.