(Reuters) – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has agreed that the Crimean peninsula, seized by Russia in 2014, should be returned to Ukrainian rule through diplomacy.
Zelenskiy, interviewed by Fox News on a train in Ukraine and broadcast on Wednesday, said his country could not afford to lose the number of lives it would take to retake Crimea through military means.
He also rejected the idea of leaving any territory previously occupied by Moscow’s forces, saying Ukraine “cannot legally accept any territory occupied by Ukraine as Russia.”
“I was saying that we are ready to return Crimea diplomatically,” Zelenskiy told Fox News through an interpreter.
“We cannot spend thousands and thousands of our people to perish because of the return of Crimea … and yet it is not certain that we can handily return it to our hands. We understand that Crimea can be brought back diplomatically.”
Russia annexed and annexed Crimea in 2014 after popular violence prompted the pro-Russian president to flee the country and pro-Russian separatists to seize large swaths of eastern Ukraine.
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, its forces have taken over a fifth of Ukraine’s territory and announced the annexation of four provinces, although Moscow does not control any of them.
Zelenskiy called for peace and a “victory plan” supported by the withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine. But his latest phone calls have included promises to protect his country and an invitation to join NATO, an idea rejected by Moscow.
(Reporting by Ron Popeski in Winnipeg; Editing by Lincoln Party.)