
Trump says ‘Crimea will stay with Russia’ as he seeks end to war in Ukraine
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — President Donald Trump said in an interview published on Friday that “Crimea will stay with Russia,” the latest example of the U.S. leader pressuring Ukraine to make concessions to end the war while it remains under siege.
“Zelenskyy understands that,” Trump said, referring to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, “and everybody understands that it’s been with them for a long time.”
The U.S. president made the comments in a Time magazine interview conducted on Tuesday. Trump has been accusing Zelenskyy of prolonging the war by resisting negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Crimea is a strategic peninsula along the Black Sea in southern Ukraine. It was seized by Russia in 2014, while President Barack Obama was in office, years before the full-scale invasion that began in 2022.