A peace proposal by the Trump administration which includes recognition Russian authority Crimea shocked Ukrainian Managers, who say they will not accept any official surrender of the peninsula, even if they expect to concede the territory to the Kremlin, at least temporarily.
Abandon Annexed illegally by Russia In 2014, was also politically and legally impossible, according to experts. There would be a change to the Ukrainian Constitution and a national vote, and it could be considered a betrayal. Legislators and the public are firmly opposed to the idea.
“That doesn’t mean anything,” said Oleksandr Merezkho, legislative at Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s party. “We will never recognize Crimea as part of Russia.”
Unlike a territorial concession, an official surrender would permanently abandon Crimea and abandon the hope that Ukraine could find it in the future.
The Ukrainian public largely understands that the land must be sold in the context of any armistice because there is no way to take it back militarily. The polls indicate that an increasing percentage of the population accepts such a compromise.
But a large part of public messages on land concessions suggested that they are not necessarily permanent, as when the mayor of kyiv Vitalii Klitschko recently declared to the BBC that Ukraine may need to temporarily renounce land within the framework of a peace agreement.
To say the contrary to effectively admit defeat – a deeply unpopular decision, in particular for the Ukrainians living under the Russian occupation who hope to be released and gathered with their families one day. He would question the sacrifices made by tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers who were killed or injured.
President Donald Trump underlined the Crimea proposal in a interview Published Friday in Time Magazine: “Crimea will remain with Russia. Zelenskyy understands it, and everyone understands that it has been with them for a long time. ”
Her comments offered the last example of the American leader using Ukraine to make concessions to end the war when she remains besieged. Trump also accused Zelenskyy of prolonging the war By resisting negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Crimea, a strategic peninsula along the Black Sea in the south of Ukraine, was seized by Russia for years before the large -scale invasion which began in 2022. The Russian takeover followed large protests which ousted the former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych, who had refused to sign an association agreement with the European Union.
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In the accounting of peace talks, Ukrainian officials told the Associated Press for months that they expected that Crimea and other Ukrainian territories controlled by Russia were among the kyiv concessions in the event of agreement. But Zelenskyy said on several occasions that the official surrender of the earth has always been a red line.
The elements of Trump’s peace proposal would see the United States officially recognize Crimea as Russian and de facto accept the reign of Moscow on occupied Ukrainian territories, according to a senior European official who spoke under the guise of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomatic discussions.
That the United States officially recognizes Crimea because Russian is out of the hands of Zelenskyy. But many obstacles prevent the Ukrainian president from doing so, even under immense pressure. He cannot unilaterally sign such a proposal, and he could be reprimanded by future governments to have even attempted him, experts said.
In this photo provided by the Ukrainian presidential press office, the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, on the right, and President Donald Trump, speak of Pope Francis funeral to the Vatican, Saturday, April 26, 2025.
Ukrainian presidential press office via AP
Ukraine began to accept that it would not find its lost territories after the failure of the country’s summer counter-offensive in 2023. From that moment, the Ukrainian army focused on the defense of the territory it still held.
In exchange for territorial concessions, Ukraine wants robust security guarantees would ideally include membership in NATO or concrete plans to arm and form its forces against any future Russian invasion with support for allies. A scenario envisages European boots on the ground, which Russia rejects.
Zelenskyy said that negotiations on occupied Ukrainian territory will be carried out and will probably not perform as long as a cease-fire will be in place. At the end of March, he told journalists after a call with Trump that the American president “clearly understood that legally we will not recognize any territory”.
He said that the abandonment of territory would be “the most difficult question” and “a great challenge for us”.
The formal recognition of Crimea would also be equivalent to political suicide for Zelenskyy. This could explain it to legal action in the future, said Tymofiy Mylovanov, president of the kyiv School of Economics and former Minister of the Economy.
The signing of a potentially unconstitutional document could be interpreted as high treason, said Mylovanov.
The Ukrainian government cannot act either. It has no constitutional means of accepting a violation of its territorial integrity and of modifying the territorial composition of the country requires a national referendum.
If the Ukrainian legislators were to even entertain the idea of giving in Crimea, this would trigger a long stretched legal debate.
“This is why Russia pushes it because they know that it is impossible to achieve,” said Mylovanov.
“Everything concerning constitutional change gives so much policies and public communication space to Russia,” he added. “That’s all they want.”
Soldiers on the front line say that they will never stop fighting, whatever political leadership.
“We have lost our best guys from this war,” said Oleksandr, a soldier from the Donetsk region, who talked about the condition that only his first name was used in accordance with military protocols. “We will not stop until all Ukrainian land is not free.”
& Copy 2025 the Canadian press