The United States has reportedly sent its European allies a confidential paper with proposals for a ceasefire to end Russia’s war against Ukraine. One of the key demands is apparently the recognition of the Kremlin’s control over the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea, which was annexed by Moscow in 2014. This was first reported by the news agency Bloomberg, the US news channel CNN, the influential US daily The Washington Post, and the business and financial newspaper The Wall Street Journal.
The US was reportedly expecting a response from Ukraine by April 23. But before this date, a meeting of top diplomats in London was postponed and downgraded after foreign ministers from Germany, the UK, France and Ukraine canceled their participation. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio also withdrew. Until then, US President Donald Trump did not confirm or deny reports of one key demand being the recognition of Crimea as Russian territory.
Zelenskyy says Kyiv will not accept annexation of Crimea
The matter of Crimea has been a recurring topic in the media since Russia’s illegal annexation of the peninsula. But Kyiv did not initially seem in a hurry to make any comments on the reports. One of the first to react was Refat Chubarov, the leader of the Crimean Tatar national movement in Ukraine and worldwide. He told US overseas broadcaster Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty that the Trump administration was testing the Ukrainian leadership with its messages regarding territorial concessions, without which the war could reportedly not end, and no lasting peace could be achieved.
A little later, the office of the Ukrainian president also reacted. Presidential advisor Serhiy Leshchenko told Ukrainian television that Kyiv had not discussed the recognition of Crimea as part of Russia with the US, and did not agree to this.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy apparently wanted to put an end to this discussion. In response to questions from journalists in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv on the evening of April 22, he reiterated that Ukraine would “not legally recognize the Russian occupation” of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, as this would be a violation of the Ukrainian constitution. “There’s nothing to talk about here,” he said, repeating that the peninsula was Ukrainian territory. US President Donald Trump said on the social platform Truth Social that the Ukrainian president’s statement was damaging for peace negotiations with Russia. He said that if Ukraine wanted Crimea, “why didn’t they fight for it 11 years ago when it was handed over to Russia without a shot being fired?”
Recognizing annexation would be a ‘seismic shift’ in US foreign policy
In a paper analyzing the implications of the US proposal, the US non-profit Robert Lansing Institute for Global Threats and Democracies Studies (RLI) outlines several risks and consequences of recognizing the annexation of Crimea from the perspective of international law. According to its analysis, it would mean a “seismic shift in US foreign policy, marking a break from decades of legal principles defending territorial integrity.”
First, it says, recognizing the annexation of Crimea would be “a strategic blow to international norms” that would “undermine the principle of territorial integrity enshrined in international law and weaken the post-WWII legal order.” This would “encourage other authoritarian states, like China or Turkey, to pursue territorial revisionism.”
Secondly, it would lead to the “alienation of allies.” Ukraine would “see such a move as a betrayal by its most important partner [and]NATO and EU allies — especially Eastern Europeans — would likely view the shift as capitulation to Russian aggression.”
Thirdly, such a move would lead to “internal political fallout” and would “provoke bipartisan backlash and raise questions about Trump’s motivations, especially given ongoing concerns about his ties to Moscow.”
The RLI concluded that officially recognizing the annexation of Crimea would “severely damage the credibility of US support for democracy and rule of law globally, especially among countries vulnerable to authoritarian pressure.”
‘An extremely dangerous precedent’
Ukrainian political scientist Volodymyr Fesenko shared this assessment. The chair of the Penta Center for Political Studies in Kyiv told DW that Crimea was “a red line” and that its loss would be “absolutely unacceptable for Ukraine.” He said that the legal recognition of its annexation would set “an extremely dangerous precedent,” not only for Ukraine but the whole world, given China’s claims over Taiwan, for example. Fesenko speculated that the downgrading of the meeting of top diplomats in London meant that the US’ proposals had been rejected.
Andras Racz from the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP) did not expect a quick diplomatic breakthrough. “It is not surprising that the Ukrainian side rejected the US proposals,” he said, considering that Kyiv would have had to recognize the annexation of Crimea officially, and in effect, relinquish the Ukrainian territory that is currently occupied by Russia.
The question now is what course Washington will take. On April 23, US Vice President JD Vance declared that both Ukraine and Russia would have to give up territories. He said that the US had made them “a very explicit proposal” for a possible peace solution and it was “time for them to either say ‘yes’ or for the United States to walk away from this process.”
This article was originally published in Russian.
