Senior adviser to newly elected US President Donald Trump, Republican Party strategist Brian Lanza made a scandalous statement about achieving peace in Ukraine and the “news” about Crimea, reports UNN with reference to the BBC.
The new administration will focus on achieving peace in Ukraine rather than allowing the country to reclaim Russian-occupied territory, a senior Trump adviser notes .
Ryan Lanza, a Republican strategist, told the BBC that the Trump administration will ask Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky to present him with his version of a "realistic vision of the world.
“And if President Zelensky sits down at the negotiating table and says: well, we can have peace only if we have Crimea, he will show us that he is not serious,” he said. “Crimea is no more.
The publication recalls that Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula in 2014. Eight years later, it launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine and occupied the territory in the east of the country.
The U.S. president-elect has consistently stated that his priority is to end the war and stop what he characterizes as a drain on U.S. military aid resources to Ukraine.
Lanza, a political adviser to the former president since the start of Trump's campaign in 2016, did not mention areas of eastern Ukraine, but said reclaiming Crimea from Russia is unrealistic and “not a goal of the United States.
“When Zelensky says we will only stop these hostilities, there will only be peace when Crimea is returned, we have news for President Zelensky: Crimea is gone,” he said on the BBC World Service Weekend program.
“And if it's your priority to take back Crimea and have American soldiers fight to take back Crimea, you're on your own.
It is important to note that the United States has never sent American soldiers to fight in Ukraine, and Kyiv has not asked American troops to fight on its behalf. Ukraine has only requested U.S. military assistance to arm its own soldiers.
Lanza also said that he has great respect for the Ukrainian people. But he said the U.S. priority is "peace and an end to the killings.
“What we're going to tell Ukraine is, 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 said.
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As previously reported, Trump spoke with Zelensky after his election victory, and billionaire Elon Musk also took part in the conversation.
A source in the Ukrainian presidential administration told the BBC that the “nice long conversation” between Zelensky and Trump lasted “about half an hour”.
“It wasn't exactly a conversation about substantive things, but overall it was very warm and enjoyable.
Trump's Democratic opponents accused him of flirting with Russian President Vladimir Putin and said his approach to the war would amount to a surrender of Ukraine and jeopardize all of Europe.
Last month, Zelensky presented a “victory plan” to the Ukrainian parliament that included refusing to cede territory and Ukraine's sovereignty.
During his campaign, Trump repeatedly said he could end the war between Russia and Ukraine “in one day,” but never gave additional details.
The document, written by two of his former national security chiefs in May, said the U.S. should continue to supply weapons but condition support on Kiev entering peace talks with russia.
Ukraine should not give up hopes of reclaiming all of its territory from Russian occupation, the document said, but it should negotiate on the basis of current front lines.
Earlier this week, Putin congratulated Trump on his election victory and said that Trump's statement that he could help end the war in Ukraine "deserves at least attention.
Lanza also criticized the support that the Biden-Harris administration and European countries have given Ukraine following a full-scale Russian invasion in February 2022.
“The reality on the ground is that European nation states and President Biden did not give Ukraine the capability and the weapons to win this war from the beginning, and they did not remove the restrictions so that Ukraine would win,” he said.