The U.S. hasn’t confirmed specifics of the ceasefire proposal, and Trump this week seemed to deny the push on Crimea.
“Nobody is asking Zelenskyy to recognize Crimea as Russian territory,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Wednesday. “But if he wants Crimea, why didn’t they fight for it eleven years ago when it was handed over to Russia without a shot being fired?”
Trump’s statements were criticized by Ukraine’s Crimean Tatar community, indigenous people of Crimea, who in February 2014 clashed with a covert Russian army in Simferopol during large protests, while Ukrainian troops were blocked by the Russian army on their bases in Crimea.
“The Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people declares that the only legitimate way to end the Russia-Ukraine war, establish a guaranteed and just peace in the region, is the deoccupation of Crimea and other occupied territories of Ukraine and the restoration of Ukraine’s territorial integrity within its internationally recognized borders,” the Mejlis said in a statement Thursday.
“Any other options threaten consequences in which the suffering of the people, including the indigenous Crimean Tatar people, due to violations of their fundamental rights, may reach catastrophic proportions,” the Crimean Tatar representative body in exile added.
In the Time interview, Trump also said that his campaign promise that he would end the Ukraine war in one day was “said in jest.”
“I said that figuratively, and I said that as an exaggeration, because to make a point,” Trump said. “Obviously, people know that when I said that, it was said in jest.”
On Thursday, Trump said he has his “own deadline” for reaching a ceasefire deal in Ukraine, though he did not specify what it is. “We want it to be fast,” he said. “We have a deadline. After that, we will have a very much different attitude.”
