Democratic predecessors

US President Donald Trump has said he believes his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy is ready to cede the occupied Crimea to Russia, a notion that the Ukrainian government has long refused to entertain.

At an informal press conference at a New Jersey airport on Sunday, Trump was asked directly if the Ukrainian president was ready to give up the peninsula, which Russia first seized in 2014 in what has long been internationally condemned as an illegal invasion.

“I think so,” Trump responded to a direct question about Zelenskyy’s openness to the idea of giving Crimea up altogether. “Don’t talk to me about Crimea, talk to Biden and Obama.”

Trump has repeatedly blamed his Democratic predecessors for Putin’s two invasions of Ukraine, though his first presidential term saw a dramatic thaw Washington’s relations with Moscow and no action against Russia’s unrecognised occupation of Crimea and parts of Ukraine’s Luhansk and Donetsk regions.

Trump made similar remarks at a press conference in the Oval Office on Friday alongside visiting Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre and former NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.

“When you say Crimea, that was handed over during the presidency of a man named Barack Hussein Obama,” Trump said. “That had nothing to do with me, Crimea, that was 11 years ago with Obama.”

“And they made a decision, there wasn’t a bullet fired, there was no fighting, there was no anything, they just handed it over. Now they say, ‘can you get it back?’ Well I think that’s going to be a very difficult thing to do.

He also blamed Obama for the “giveaway” in a post on his bespoke social media platform Truth Social.

Trump, who while running for re-election repeatedly claimed he could end the war in Ukraine with a few days of negotiation, has made a number of recent statements about the conflict indicating that he believes a ceasefire is possible but alternately blaming both Ukraine and Russia for obstructing it.

His erratic approach to public diplomacy has frustrated Zelenskyy’s government in particular. The Ukrainian president, whom Trump and his Vice President JD Vance notoriously clashed with at an Oval Office press conference earlier this year, met with Trump at the Vatican this weekend on the sidelines of the funeral of Pope Francis for what the White House described as “a very productive discussion”.

In a statement calling it a “good meeting”, Zelenskyy expressed hope that Trump will support the Ukrainians’ basic demands — though he did not specifically mention the issue of territory captured by Russia

“Hoping for results on everything we covered,” he wrote. “Protecting lives of our people. Full and unconditional ceasefire. Reliable and lasting peace that will prevent another war from breaking out. Very symbolic meeting that has potential to become historic, if we achieve joint results.

Separately, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov gave an interview to US network CBS on Sunday in which he flatly dismissed the idea of returning Crimea to Ukraine.

“Why don’t you ask me about President Trump’s position on Crimea?” he asked anchor Margaret Brennan, who pointed out that Trump said Crimea was not even being discussed in negotiations.

“Yes, because this is a done deal,” Lavrov replied. “Russia does not renegotiate its own territory.”