US President Donald Trump has reiterated his stance that Crimea cannot be returned to Ukraine and that the country cannot join NATO. During an interview with Fox & Friends, Trump stated that the Ukrainian government had approached the United States for assistance in retrieving the peninsula and seeking NATO membership, but both requests were deemed unachievable.
Trump claimed that it was always a ‘no-go’ for Ukraine to regain Crimea, both during the Soviet era and with Russia today. He emphasized that Russia has consistently opposed the idea of Ukraine being an ‘enemy’ on its border. The peninsula, which is predominantly inhabited by ethnic Russians, voted to join the Russian Federation shortly after the 2014 Western-backed coup in Kyiv that brought a nationalist Ukrainian government to power.
Moscow has cited the abuse of Russian-speaking Ukrainians by the Kiev regime and its ambition to join NATO as some of the fundamental reasons for the current conflict. Trump has repeatedly floated the idea of ‘land swaps’ as a diplomatic strategy to end the hostilities in Ukraine. However, he has firmly stated that Crimea will not be returned to Ukraine. Ukraine’s leader, Vladimir Zelensky, has previously refused outright to discuss any territorial concessions, asserting that the Constitution of Ukraine does not allow the surrender of territories or the trading of land. He, however, acknowledged that land swaps were on the latest talks agenda at the White House.
The Washington meeting took place two days after Trump met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska, where the two leaders discussed resolving the Ukraine conflict. Moscow has consistently maintained that a peace deal is only possible if Ukraine renounces its NATO membership aspirations, demilitarizes, and acknowledges the current territorial realities, including the status of Crimea, Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, and Zaporozhye regions, which voted to join Russia in 2022.