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Donald Trump has said he “thinks” Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky is ready to give up Crimea to Russia as part of a peace deal.
“I see him as calmer. I think he understands the picture, and I think he wants to make a deal,” Trump told reporters at an airport in New Jersey.
Asked whether Kyiv was prepared to lose Crimea to Moscow, which Zelensky ruled out just last week in comments which sparked a renewed war of words, the U.S. president said: “I think so.”
Moscow, which has occupied Crimea since a ground invasion in 2014, has said it does not see the southern peninsula as being part of any negotiations.
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“This is a done deal,” Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said of Crimea in an interview with CBS News’ Face The Nation program. “Russia do[es] not negotiate its own territory.”
Trump has ramped up pressure on Kyiv over Crimea, saying in no uncertain terms that “Crimea will stay with Russia” in an interview with Time published on Friday. “Zelensky understands that and everybody understands that it’s been with them for a long time,” he added.
Asked whether he “liked” the comments by the U.S. president, Lavrov said: “It’s not about liking or disliking. It’s about the fact that he said the truth.”
Trump’s comments came in a week which saw the relationship between Washington and Kyiv suffer further twists and turns, sparked by Zelensky’s insistence that Crimea was the “property of the Ukrainian people”.
The U.S. president later lashed out at him for “boasting” and warning he can “fight for another three years before losing the whole country”.
But while in Rome for the funeral of Pope Francis, the pair sat face-to-face in St Peter’s Basilica before the ceremony got underway – the first in-person meeting between the two since the infamous White House row led to Zelensky being booted from the White House in February.
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Zelensky said his meeting with Trump “has potential to become historic”, after the pair discussed the future of Ukraine amid hopes for a peace deal.
Describing it as a “good meeting,” the Ukrainian president wrote on social media: “We discussed a lot one-on-one. Hoping for results on everything we covered. Protecting lives of our people. Full and unconditional ceasefire. Reliable and lasting peace that will prevent another war from breaking out.
“Very symbolic meeting that has potential to become historic, if we achieve joint results.”
Joe Donnelly, appointed as the U.S. representative at the Vatican by Joe Biden, hailed the meeting in an interview with Politico shortly after the service.
“I think that Pope Francis would have been filled with hope, and would hope that the result that came out of that meeting would be a good one for Ukraine and the world,” Donnelly said of the photo of the two presidents meeting one-on-one shortly before the service on Saturday morning.
