Crimea is no more. Ukraine should focus on peace, not on reconquest of territories - Trump’s advisor Lanza
The administration of US President-elect Donald Trump will focus on achieving peace in Ukraine rather than allowing the country to regain the territories occupied by Russia.
This was stated by Trump's senior adviser, Brian Lanza, Censor.NET reports citing the BBC.
Lanza, who is a Republican strategist, noted that the Trump administration will ask Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to present his version of a "realistic vision of peace".
"And if President Zelenskyy sits down at the table and says: well, we can only have peace if we have Crimea, he shows us that he is not serious," he said.
In his statement, Lanza did not mention other occupied Ukrainian territories in eastern Ukraine at all, but called the return of Crimea "unrealistic", which "is not the goal of the United States".
When Zelenskyy says that we will only stop this struggle, there will be peace only after the return of Crimea, we have news for President Zelenskyy: Crimea is gone. And if that's your priority - to get Crimea back and make American soldiers fight to get Crimea back - then you're on your own," the Trump adviser said.
At the same time, Lanza stressed that he has great respect for the Ukrainian people, calling them "the heart of a lion"
But, according to him, the US priority is "peace and an end to the killing".
"What we are going to say to Ukraine, you know: what do you see? What you see as a realistic vision of peace. It's not a vision of victory, but it's a vision of peace. And let's start an honest conversation," he added.
Trump's senior adviser also criticized the support that the Biden administration and European countries have provided to Ukraine since Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022.
"The reality is that the European nation-states and President Biden did not give Ukraine the capacity and weapons to win this war at the outset, and they failed to remove the constraints on Ukraine's victory," Lanza concluded.
