Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that only diplomacy would allow Ukraine to return the Crimean peninsula, annexed by Russia in 2014.
Ukraine cannot afford to lose the lives that would be necessary to retake Crimea militarily, Volodymyr Zelensky said in an interview with the American television channel Fox News broadcast Wednesday.
Diplomacy is everything
However, he rejected the idea of ceding territories already occupied by Russian forces to Russia, believing that Ukraine “could not legally recognize any territory of Ukraine as Russian”. “I have already mentioned that we are ready to see Crimea returned through diplomatic channels.”said the Ukrainian president.
“We cannot lose tens of thousands of our citizens to recover Crimea, and it is not certain that we can take it back with arms in hand. We understand that Crimea can be returned through diplomatic channels.”
Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula in 2014 after an uprising that forced Ukraine's pro-Russian president to flee. Since the invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022, Russian forces have seized around a fifth of Ukrainian territory. Moscow has annexed four Ukrainian regions, although it does not have full control over them.
Volodymyr Zelensky presented a “victory plan” which includes an unconditional invitation to integrate Ukraine into NATO, as well as the deployment on its territory of a non-nuclear strategic deterrent system, two points which have not been the subject of any commitment on the part of the Western allies
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