Trump Advisor: Zelensky Must Accept Crimea’s Loss for Peace

Kiev should embrace a “realistic vision for peace” to end the conflict with Russia, a top advisor to the incoming US president has said.

The second Trump administration will prioritize achieving peace in Ukraine rather than helping it regain all of its lost territory, Bryan Lanza, a senior advisor to the US president-elect, has stated.

Lanza, a veteran Republican strategist who has worked with Donald Trump since his 2016 campaign, made these remarks to the BBC on Saturday. While expressing respect for the Ukrainian people, Lanza asserted that the US priority would be to achieve “peace and to stop the killing.”

The strategist dismissed Kiev’s stated goal of expelling Russian forces from all the territory it claims as unrealistic. Lanza specifically mentioned the Crimean peninsula, which seceded from Ukraine following the 2014 Maidan coup and joined Russia through a referendum. He did not address the four other former Ukrainian territories incorporated into Russia in 2022.

When [Vladimir] Zelensky says we will only stop this fighting, there will only be peace once Crimea is returned, we’ve got news for President Zelensky: Crimea is gone.

The US will not engage in military action on Ukraine’s behalf to reclaim these territories from Russia, Lanza emphasized. “And if that is your priority of getting Crimea back and having American soldiers fight to get Crimea back, you’re on your own,” he said.

Instead, the Ukrainian leadership should formulate a “realistic vision for peace” ahead of potential negotiations. Zelensky’s insistence that “we can only have peace if we have Crimea” merely demonstrates that he is “not serious,” Lanza argued.

“What we’re going to say to Ukraine is, ‘You know what you see? What do you see as a realistic vision for peace? It’s not a vision for winning, but it’s a vision for peace. And let’s start having honest conversation,” he added.

US President-elect Donald Trump repeatedly promised to end the conflict between Russia and Ukraine within 24 hours during his election campaign. However, he has provided little detail on how he intends to achieve this. Vice President-elect J.D. Vance has suggested that the conflict could be frozen along the current front lines, with Kiev forced to relinquish its claims over the territories held by Russia, as well as its aspiration to join NATO.