(Reuters) – A senior aide to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said in an interview broadcast on Saturday that the new administration’s priority in Ukraine would be establishing peace and not restoring lost territory, including Crimea.
Bryan Lanza, a long-time Republican party strategist, told the BBC that Trump’s administration would be asking Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy for a “realistic vision for peace.”
“And if President Zelenskiy comes to the table and says, well we can only have peace if we have Crimea, he shows to us that he’s not serious. Crimea is gone,” he said. “And if that is your priority of getting Crimea back and having American soldiers fight to get Crimea back, you’re on your own.”
He said the priority was “peace and to stop the killing.”
“What we’re going to say to Ukraine is, you know what you see? What do you see as a realistic vision for peace? It’s not a vision for winning, but it’s a vision for peace. And let’s start having the honest conversation, he said.
Russia annexed the Crimea peninsula in 2014 after an uprising that prompted Ukraine’s Russia-friendly president to flee. More than 2 1/2 years after launching its full-fledged invasion, Russian forces hold just under 20% of its territory.
Zelenskiy has repeatedly said peace cannot be established until all Russian forces are expelled and all territory captured by Moscow, including Crimea, is returned. His “victory plan” presented last month maintains that provision as well as an invitation for Ukraine to join NATO, long denounced by Russia.
Ukraine has sought modern weapons from the United States as well as authorisation to use them on Russian targets but it has never called for U.S. forces to be deployed on its territory.
Russian troops failed in their initial advance on the Ukrainian capital Kyiv but in recent months have been capturing a string of villages on the eastern front.
Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin said in June that conditions for peace talks included Ukraine abandoning the four regions Moscow has annexed, though it does not have full control over them.
During the election campaign, Trump said he would find a solution to end the war “within a day,” but did not explain how he would do so.
Zelenskiy and Trump spoke by telephone this week after the U.S. election in a conversation joined by billionaire Trump supporter Elon Musk, according to media reports.
(Reporting by Ron Popeski; Editing by Mark Porter)
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