Trump team distances itself from Ukraine ‘peace not territory’ claim

US President-elect Donald Trump’s team has distanced itself from remarks made by a Republican strategist that the White House’s proposal to end the war in Ukraine was about peace and not territory.

In an interview with the BBC, Bryan Lanza, who worked on Trump’s presidential campaign, outlined some of the incoming Trump administration’s alleged points for peace and suggested restoring lost territory wasn’t a priority.

“If President Zelenskyy comes to the table and says, well we can only have peace if we have Crimea, he shows to us that he’s not serious. Crimea is gone,” Lanza said.

But a spokesperson for Trump’s transition team said Lanza did not currently work for the president-elect and did not speak for him.

On the campaign trail, Trump claimed he could end the war in Ukraine “within a day” without going into detail about how that would be achieved.

But Trump also hasn’t rule out the possibility that Kyiv may have to cede territory to Moscow to bring about an end to more than two years of war.

Annexed territories

Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula in 2014 and then, in the first year of the war, unilaterally declared the annexation of four areas of Ukraine – Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia – without ever maintaining full control over any of them. 

But Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has repeatedly said the full withdrawal of Russia’s forces and the return of all annexed territories is a must if peace is to be established.

Meanwhile, Russia has said it is open to hearing Trump’s proposals on how to end the war.

Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Moscow and Washington were “exchanging signals” on Ukraine via “closed channels.”

He did not specify whether the communication was with the current administration or Trump and members of his incoming administration.

Russia is ready to listen to Trump’s proposals on Ukraine provided these were “ideas on how to move forward in the area of settlement and not in the area of further pumping the Kyiv regime with all kinds of aid,” Ryabkov said in an interview with Russian state news agency Interfax.

And Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha told reporters that Kyiv is also ready to work with the Trump administration.

“Remember that President Zelenskyy was one of the first world leaders to greet President Trump,” he said.

“Also during the telephone conversation, further steps to establish communication between teams were discussed and this work has also begun. Therefore, we are open for further cooperation and I’m sure that a unified goal of reaching just peace unites all of us.”

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Criticism of Ukraine military aid

But Trump has long been critical of US military aid for Ukraine, threatening more than once on the campaign trail to end it if he re-entered the White House.

At a campaign rally in Detroit in June, Trump slammed Zelenskyy as “the greatest salesman of all time” and criticised the amount of money Washington pumps into Kyiv’s war effort.

“I will have that settled,” Trump said.

The Pentagon confirmed on Friday that an already promised military aid package worth $6 billion (€5.6 billion) would be sent to Kyiv before Trump takes office in January with the Biden administration nervous that the incoming president might halt its shipment.

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According to data on the State Department website, the US has given Ukraine just over $64 billion (€59 billion) in military aid since Russia invaded the country in February 2022.