A former adviser to President-elect Donald Trump says the incoming administration will focus on achieving peace in Ukraine rather than enabling the country to gain back territory occupied by Russia.
Bryan Lanza, who worked on Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign, told the BBC the incoming administration would ask Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for his version of a “realistic vision for peace”.
“And if President Zelensky 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,” he said. “Crimea is gone.”
A spokesperson for Trump distanced the incoming president from the remarks, saying Mr Lanza “does not speak for him”.
Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula in 2014. Eight years later, it launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine and has occupied territory in the country’s east.
The president-elect has consistently said his priority is to end the war and stem what he characterises as a drain on US resources, in the form of military aid to Ukraine.
But he has yet to divulge how he intends to do so – and will likely be hearing competing visions for Ukraine’s future from his various advisers.
Mr Lanza, a Trump political adviser during his 2016 and 2024 campaigns, did not mention areas of eastern Ukraine, but he said regaining Crimea from Russia was unrealistic and “not the goal of the United States”.
“When Zelensky says we will only stop this fighting, there will only be peace once Crimea is returned, we’ve got news for President Zelensky: Crimea is gone,” he told the BBC World Service’s Weekend programme.
“And if that is your priority of getting Crimea back and having American soldiers fight to get Crimea back, you’re on your own.”
The US has never deployed American soldiers to fight in Ukraine, nor has Kyiv requested American troops fight on its behalf. Ukraine has only requested American military aid to arm its own soldiers.
Mr Lanza said he had tremendous respect for the Ukrainian people, whose “hearts are made of lions”. But he said the US priority was “peace and to stop the killing”.
“What we’re going to say to Ukraine is, you know what you see? What do you see as a realistic vision for peace. It’s not a vision for winning, but it’s a vision for peace. And let’s start having the honest conversation,” he said.
In response, Zelensky’s adviser Dmytro Lytvyn characterised Mr Lanza’s remarks as placing the pressure for peace on Ukraine when it was “Putin who wants more war”.
“Putin loses most of his people in assaults at the front. What does this indicate? It is obvious that he wants to fight on,” he said.
“Ukraine has been offering peace since 2022 – there are quite realistic proposals. And it is Russia that must be made to hear that peace is needed and that peace must be reliable, so that there is simply no repetition of Russian strikes.”
A spokesperson for Trump’s transition team – which prepares the incoming administration for office – said Mr Lanza was “a contractor for the campaign”, but “does not work for President Trump and does not speak for him”.
Trump is expected to handle peace talks with a close circle of aides once in office.
