(Reuters) – An adviser to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said in an interview broadcast on Saturday that the new administration's priority would be bringing peace to Ukraine, not returning lost territories, including Crimea.
Bryan Lanza, a longtime Republican Party strategist, told the BBC that the Trump administration would ask Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelensky for a “realistic vision of peace.”
“If President Zelensky comes to the negotiating table and says that we can only have peace if we have Crimea, he is showing us that he is not serious. Crimea no longer exists,” he said. “If your priority is to reclaim Crimea and send American soldiers to fight to reclaim it, you are on your own. »
The priority is, according to him, “peace and an end to the massacres”.
“What we are going to say to Ukraine is: 'What do you think is a realistic vision of peace? It is not a vision of victory, but a vision of peace. Let’s start having an honest conversation,” he said.
Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula in 2014 after an uprising that prompted Ukraine's pro-Russian president to flee.
More than two and a half years after the start of the invasion of Ukraine, Russian forces control just under 20% of its territory.
Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly stated that peace cannot be established until all Russian forces are expelled and all territories conquered by Moscow, including Crimea, are returned.
His “victory plan” presented last month maintains this line and encourages Ukraine's entry into NATO, which Russia refuses.
Ukraine has asked the United States to provide it with modern weapons and permission to use them on Russian targets, but it has never requested the deployment of American forces on its territory.
Russian troops failed in their attempt to advance on the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, but have overrun villages on the Eastern Front in recent months.
Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin said in June that peace negotiations involved Ukraine abandoning four regions annexed by Moscow even though it does not have full control of them.
On the campaign trail, Donald Trump said he would end the war “in one day” without saying how he would do it.
Volodimir Zelensky and Donald Trump spoke by telephone this week, a conversation joined by pro-Trump billionaire Elon Musk, according to media reports.
(Reporting by Ron Popeski; French version Elizabeth Pineau)
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