"If Zelensky asks for Crimea, it would not be serious", Trump's advisor: The focus will be on peace, not on territories

Crimea is already lost forever. This is what a senior adviser to the newly elected president Donald Trump says. In a statement about the British giant, the BBC points out that the next US administration will focus on achieving peace in the war in Ukraine instead of fighting to regain Ukrainian territories.

Bryan Lanza, a Republican strategist, told the BBC that the Trump administration will ask Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for his version of a "realistic vision for peace."

"Even if President Zelensky comes to the table and says, we can only have peace if we have Crimea, he shows us that he is not serious," he said.

Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula in 2014. Eight years later, it launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine and has seized territory in the east of the country. Trump has already spoken to Zelensky since he won the US election. The two held a call on Wednesday with billionaire Elon Musk also participating.

"It was a short conversation with Musk, but it was a good and long conversation with Trump, it lasted about half an hour," a source in the Ukrainian presidential office told the BBC. "It wasn't a conversation to talk about very substantial things, but overall it was very warm and pleasant."

Lanza did not mention areas of eastern Ukraine, but he said that Russia's recapture of Crimea was unrealistic and "not the goal of the United States."

"When Zelensky says that we will stop this fighting, there will be peace only after Crimea is returned, I'm sorry, but we have news for President Zelensky: Crimea is already gone."

Lanza said he had tremendous respect for the Ukrainian people, describing them as the hearts of lions. But he said the US priority was "peace and stopping the killing".

"And if that's your priority to take Crimea back and fight American soldiers to take Crimea back, you're alone in the process. What we are going to say to Ukraine is, you know what you see? What do you see as a realistic vision for peace? It is not a vision of winning, but it is a vision of peace. And let's start having an honest conversation."

Lanza also criticized the support the Biden-Harris administration and European countries have given Ukraine since Russia's February 2022 full-scale invasion.