US President Donald Trump said in an interview published Friday that "Crimea will stay with Russia," the latest example of the US leader pressuring Ukraine to make concessions to end the war while it remains under siege.
"Zelenskyy understands that," Trump said, referring to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, "and everybody understands that it’s been with them for a long time."
Trump made the comments in a Time magazine interview conducted on Tuesday. Trump has been accusing Zelenskyy of prolonging the war by resisting negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Western European leaders, however, have accused Putin of dragging his feet in the negotiations and seeking to grab more Ukrainian land while his army has battlefield momentum.
The war could be approaching a pivotal moment as the Trump administration weighs its options. Senior US officials have warned that the administration could soon give up attempts to stop the war if the two sides do not come to a settlement. That could potentially mean a halt of crucial US military aid for Ukraine.
Crimea is a strategic peninsula along the Black Sea in southern Ukraine. It was seized by Russia in 2014, while President Barack Obama was in office, years before Russia's full-scale invasion of its neighbor in 2022.
"They’ve had their submarines there for long before any period that we’re talking about, for many years. The people speak largely Russian in Crimea," Trump said. "But this was given by Obama. This wasn’t given by Trump."
Zelenskyy has repeated many times during the war that recognizing occupied Ukrainian territory as Russian is a red line for his country.
Speaking to reporters Friday as he left the White House to attend the funeral of Pope Francis in Rome, Trump said there is no deadline for the conclusion of peace talks.
"I just want to do it as fast as possible," Trump said. Negotiators are "pretty close" to a deal, he said.
He promised to meet with foreign leaders while in Rome, and said it was "possible" he could meet with Zelenskyy.
Trump envoy Steve Witkoff met with Putin in Moscow on Friday, their second meeting this month and the fourth since February. Witkoff's trip coincided with the death of a senior Russian military officer in a car bomb near Moscow.
The Kremlin released a short video of Putin and Witkoff greeting each other. "How are you, Mr. President?" Witkoff could be heard saying. "Fine, just fine, thank you," Putin responded in rare remarks in English, as the two shook hands.
Putin’s foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov, who attended the talks, said the meeting lasted three hours and was "constructive" and "useful." Further talks are expected, he said.
Putin and Witkoff discussed, "in particular, the possibility of resuming direct negotiations between representatives of the Russian Federation and Ukraine," according to Ushakov. Delegations from the two countries last met in the weeks following Russia's February 2022 invasion of its neighbor.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in an interview with CBS’ "Face the Nation" that he agreed with Trump’s opinion that negotiations "are moving in the right direction."
Russia, he said, is "ready to reach a deal, but there are still some specific points — elements of this deal which need to be fine-tuned." He declined to provide further details, according to excerpts of the interview that will air Sunday.
Meanwhile, Russia has continued its bombardment of Ukraine. A drone struck an apartment building in a southeastern Ukraine city, killing three people and injuring 10 others, officials said Friday, a day after Trump rebuked Putin for a major missile and drone attack on Kyiv that killed 12 people and injured 87.
A child and a 76-year-old woman were among the civilians killed in the nighttime drone strike in Pavlohrad, in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region, the head of the regional administration, Serhii Lysak, wrote on Telegram.
Russian forces fired 103 Shahed and decoy drones at five Ukrainian regions overnight, Ukraine’s air force reported. Authorities in the northeastern Sumy and Kharkiv regions reported damage to civilian infrastructure but no casualties.
Russian forces used Thursday's attack on Kyiv as cover to launch almost 150 assaults on Ukrainian positions along the roughly 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line, Zelenskyy said late Thursday.
"When the maximum of our forces was focused on defense against missiles and drones, the Russians went on to significantly intensify their ground attacks," he wrote on Telegram.
Zelenskyy noted Thursday that Ukraine agreed to a US ceasefire proposal 44 days ago, as a first step to a negotiated peace, but that Russian attacks continued.
During recent talks, Russia hit the city of Sumy, killing more than 30 civilians gathered to celebrate Palm Sunday, battered Odesa with drones and blasted Zaporizhzhia with powerful glide bombs.
