Donald Trump has said the occupied peninsula of Crimea could be legally recognised as part of Russia in the ongoing peace talks to end the Ukraine war.
“Crimea will stay with Russia,” the US president told TIME magazine in an interview which was conducted on April 22.
Even though Crimea has been officially part of Ukraine since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Trump claimed that Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy “understands that” too.
“Everybody understands that it’s been with them for a long time. It’s been with them long before Trump came along,” he said.
Crimea was illegally annexed by Russia in 2014 when Barack Obama was in office, and a year before Trump declared his intention to run for the US presidency.
At the time, Trump described Putin’s invasion of Crimea as “so smart”, telling Fox News Putin has “done an amazing job of taking the mantle”.
The president told Time: “Well, Crimea went to the Russians. It was handed to them by Barack Hussein Obama, and not by me.
“With that being said, will they be able to get it back? … [the Russians] have had their submarines there for long before any period that we’re talking about, for many years. The people speak largely Russian in Crimea.
“This wasn’t given by Trump. Would it have been taken from me like it was taken from Obama? No, it wouldn’t have happened.”
The day after the interview was conducted, Trump issued a scathing attack on Volodymyr Zelenskyy, accusing him of making “inflammatory” remarks about Crimea.
The Ukrainian president had shot down early reports that the US planned to hand Crimea to Putin in a peace deal, saying formally handing over the peninsula would violate the country’s constitution.
Article 2 of the constitution states Ukraine’s sovereignty “extends throughout its entire territory” which “within its present border is indivisible and inviolable”.
Changing the constitution could only happen via a public vote – which is prohibited while Ukraine is under war-induced martial law.
Recognising Crimea as part of Russia would also deviate from a decade of US foreign policy.
Bizarrely, just hours after speaking to Time, Trump wrote on social media on Wednesday: “Nobody is asking Zelenskyy to recognise Crimea as Russian Territory but, if he wants Crimea, why didn’t they fight for it eleven years ago when it was handed over to Russia without a shot being fired?”
The US president has been trying to end the war as soon as possible, having promised during his election campaign to resolve it within 24 hours of returning to the White House – that was three months ago.
In that time, he has repeatedly blamed Ukraine for starting the war, even though it was triggered by Putin’s invasion in February 2022 and the Kremlin’s ongoing attempts to seize the whole country.
As he told the US outlet: “I think what caused the war to start was when they started talking about joining Nato.
“If that weren’t brought up, there would have been a much better chance that it wouldn’t have started.”
Trump has repeatedly blamed the war on his predecessor Joe Biden and Barack Obama, too.
“This is Obama’s war. This is a war that should never have happened,” the president told the magazine. “I call it the war that should have never happened.”
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