Zelensky Red Line on the Crimea is linked to the political reality at home

When the Trump administration proposed a peace plan that recognizes Russian rule in the Crimea, the response from Kiev was a high number and unambiguous.

Do this The nation’s constitution will violatePresident Voludmir Zelinski of Ukraine told reporters. He announced that it will never happen, even in return for the end of the bloody war, often away from the disputed lands that were in the hands of Russian for more than a decade.

The Red Mr. Zelensky line has a difficult political fact that he keeps in place.

Inside Ukraine, the official recognition of Russian control of the Crimea is widely seen as a dangerous concession for an enlarged competitor and the abandonment of Ukrainians who still live in the region. It would also contemplate the reunification of families separated by the 2014 occupation of 2014-when many of the population supported the Ukrainians, while their relatives remained elderly or supporters of Russia.

“There is no single Ukrainian politician who will vote to legitimize the occupation of Ukrainian lands,” said Kostantin Yilisiev, former Vice President of the Presidential Chief of Staff. “For members of Parliament, it will be worse than political suicide,” he said.

President Trump has expressed confusion and thwarting the reaction of Mr. Zelinski on Wednesday, Publishing on social media This Crimea was “lost years ago”, indicating that the Ukrainian leader was prolonging the war on the dream of pipelines.

Mr. Trump wrote: “He can get peace or, he can fight for another three years before losing the entire country.”

The Crimea began seizing in 2014 when Russian soldiers – wearing masks and no badge on their military uniforms – government buildings and military bases.

The process was mostly without blood. Ukrainian soldiers withdrew or switching both sides. But this invasion began a Russian effort to seize lands in eastern Ukraine using its forces and the agency, and began a struggle that killed about 14,000 soldiers and civilians on both sides before Russia’s comprehensive invasion in 2022, which led to a wider war, according to the United Nations countries.

That war continues to be angry, as last week, and the Trump administration has repeatedly threatened to move away from the peace process. On Thursday, Russian forces have launched the bloodiest blood Missile attack and drone In the Ukrainian capital since last summer, killing at least nine people and wounding more than 60, according to the Ukrainian authorities.

In peace talks through the United States, Ukraine was hoping to leave control of the Crimea from the discussion. She requested an immediate ceasefire, freezing conflict along the current front lines, as well as security guarantees against renewable attacks, such as spreading the European peacekeeping force or the final membership in NATO.

But the Trump administration rejected this approach this week. Its proposal included accepting Russia’s rule in the Crimea and prohibiting Ukraine to join NATO. In contrast, hostilities will be stopped along the current front lines.

In private talks, Ukrainian officials were open to stop the fighting in the confrontation line. Looking at the current momentum of Russia in the battlefield, they admit that the result can prefer Ukraine.

More importantly, when the ceasefire falls, Ukrainian officials said, Russia will not use a temporary fighting to re -assemble and rearm the new attacks. Russia has also warned that Ukraine could use an offside ceasefire, but it greatly welcomed the American proposal.

Mikhailo Samos, director of geographic geography research network, a research institution in Kiev, said that peace talks seem more vulnerable to the Crimean recognition Foundation than the front of the front lines. “The Crimea issue is the main cause of their potential failure,” he said.

The Crimea, with a population of about two million people, joined the rest of Ukraine in voting in favor of independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. But the region maintained close relations with Russia through the tourism industry, and the majority of the population were Russian speakers. The Russian nationalists have brought the region shortly before the Soviet secession.

Memories of annexation are still raw in Ukraine. The recognition of Russian control is also opposed by an organization that represents Tatar Crimea, an ethnic group with deep roots in the peninsula and faced political revenge, according to human rights groups.

“The Crimean Peninsula is the homeland of the Crimean people, the indigenous people and an integral part of Ukraine,” wrote Refat Chubarov, head of the Mejlis Council, Crimean Council, wrote on a social media. “No one – under any circumstances – can decide the fate of the Crimea, with the exception of the Ukrainian state and the Crimean people.”

Among the Ukrainian officials, negotiation is seen on Crimea as a political risk.

In Kiev, officials remember that the wires who signed the lease of a Russian naval base on the Crimea in 2010, before the war began, had been tried later for treason.

The Ukrainians note that recognition will violate the principles of Europe after the Second World War to oppose the transformation of the borders by force.

“No Ukrainian president will have the power to recognize the Crimea as well as a part of Russia,” said Ukrandra Mattechuk, the Ukrainian lawyer for human rights who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022.

It is difficult to measure public opinion in the Crimea. After Russia, many population expressed their support in interviews and jobs on social media to join Russia, but the reliable ballot is rare.

Kaja Callas, the best European Union diplomat, said the bloc opposes the official recognition of Russian sovereignty over the Crimea. Türkiye was also a strong opponent of recognition, in solidarity with the residents of the Tatars and the security concern about the presence of a recognized Russian military on the peninsula.

During the first term of Mr. Trump, his administration also issued an official statement opposing recognition.

A statement in 2018, known as the Crimea Declaration, said that the United States will obscure recognition, just as it was in the Soviet occupation of the Baltic countries in Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia during the Cold War, a policy that made the easiest bids of those countries for independence in the late eighties and early nineties.

This declaration said, “The United States reaffirms as a policy of its refusal to recognize the Kremlin’s claims of sovereignty over the lands that the force seized in violating international law.”

In response to Mr. Trump’s criticism, Mr. Zellinski referred to the statement in a social media post.

Anna Lukinova She contributed to the reports from Kyiv.