President Donald Trump said in an interview with TIME that as part of the peace proposal to end the Russia-Ukraine war, “Crimea will stay with Russia” and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky “understands that.”
“If Crimea will stay with Russia — we have to only talk about Crimea because that’s the one that always gets mentioned. Crimea will stay with Russia. And Zelensky understands that, and everybody understands that it’s been with them for a long time,” Trump said.
This comes as Trump lashed out at Zelensky earlier this week accusing him of prolonging the war through “inflammatory statements,” after the Ukraine president said his nation “will not legally recognize the occupation of Crimea,” as it’s against their constitution.
Asked during the TIME interview if peace is possible with Zelensky as president, Trump said, “Yeah, I do. He is president now and I think we’re going to make a deal.”
The interview, published Friday and conducted on April 22, provides a look at Trump’s first 100 days. In it, Trump also reiterates how he believes Ukraine sparked the conflict with Russia through a desire to join NATO — something he believes will not happen.
“I don’t think they’ll ever be able to join NATO. I think that’s been — from day one, I think that’s been, that’s I think what caused the war to start was when they started talking about joining NATO,” Trump said.
Trump said that he believes Russian President Vladimir Putin would rather “go and take the whole thing,” meaning Ukraine, but he’s “the only one that can get this thing negotiated.”
Trump repeatedly said on the campaign trail that he could solve the conflict in one day or 24 hours. He told TIME that was “said in jest.”
“Well, I said that figuratively, and I said that as an exaggeration, because to make a point, and you know, it gets, of course, by the fake news [unintelligible],” Trump said. “Obviously, people know that when I said that, it was said in jest, but it was also said that it will be ended.”
Earlier this month, Trump acknowledged that Russian President Vladimir Putin started the war against Ukraine, but he also continued to cast blame on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and former President Joe Biden, saying “everybody’s to blame.”
On Wednesday, Vice President JD Vance said he views one of the final steps in reaching peace between Ukraine and Russia as an agreement to freeze the territorial lines “somewhere close” to where they are today, meaning each side would have to give up some land.
