US proposes ceding Crimea to Russia for end to war

U.S. proposes recognizing Crimea as Russian ahead of new round of talks

The Washington Post

April 22, 2025

Ukraine and its European allies will be meeting with top U.S. officials in London on Wednesday to discuss the proposals, which may not sit well with Kyiv.

By Siobhán O'Grady, John Hudson and Steve Hendrix

People walk in front of a poster reading “For Russia! For the President! For Sevastopol!” in Simferopol, Crimea, on March 5, 2024. (AFP/Getty Images)

KYIV — Ukrainian and European officials meeting in London on Wednesday will be faced with a fast-moving U.S. proposal to recognize Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea and freeze the war’s front lines as part of a peace agreement, according to several people familiar with internal deliberations.

Ukraine’s allies are hoping to win security guarantees and reconstruction programs for the embattled country in exchange for any such territorial concessions.

The U.S. proposals, presented to Ukraine in Paris last week, include having Washington formally recognize annexed Crimea as Russian territory and eventually lifting sanctions against Russia under a future accord, according to three people familiar with the matter. In exchange, Moscow would end hostilities in Ukraine at a time when Russia’s military enjoys battlefield momentum and sizable advantages in troop strength and weaponry.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told reporters Tuesday that Ukraine would not recognize Crimea as Russian, noting that it would violate the country’s constitution to do so. Discussing Crimea and other Ukrainian territory aids Russia, he said, by allowing Moscow to continue the war, because “it will not be possible to agree on everything quickly.”

An adviser to Zelensky said the American proposals included some ideas that Kyiv agrees with and others it does not. A Western official said the terms of the proposed deal and concessions expected of Ukraine were “astounding.” Like others, they spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomatic conversations.

A State Department official downplayed the idea that Washington was presenting a fait accompli to Kyiv, but the Trump administration’s increasingly public frustration with the pace of the talks has left Kyiv fearful of another downturn in relations with Washington. “The only thing they seem to be allowed is to keep their army,” the official said of Ukraine.

As negotiations pick up pace, with U.S. officials threatening to walk away within days, pressure is mounting on Kyiv. French, British and German negotiators, who have taken a more active hand in peace talks, are expected to press Ukraine’s case in London by urging that any deal include security guarantees and postwar reconstruction programs, possibly paid for in part with frozen Russian assets.

European, and even Ukrainian, officials acknowledge privately that Kyiv is unlikely to regain control of the Russian-controlled territories any time soon. At best, they are hoping to slow the rush to any agreement that allows Moscow to hang on to conquered lands and come out from under sanctions, without first winning significant benefits for Ukraine.

“There is concern that Trump is trying to push the Ukrainians and hasn’t been tough enough on Russia,” said Mujtaba Rahman, a managing director at the Eurasia Group, a political risk consulting firm. “The ultimate question now is, what does Ukraine get in exchange for giving up part of its territory?”

The United States presented the outline of its proposals to Ukraine in talks in Paris last week, with Ukrainians interpreting it as Washington’s final offer before it considers giving up on the peace process, according to two people familiar with the matter.

From left, Gunter Sautter of Germany, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot, British Foreign Secretary David Lammy and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio arrive at the Quai d'Orsay in Paris before a meeting on April 17. (Julien De Rosa/Pool/Reuters)

Officials from the United States and Europe meet in Paris on April 17. (Ludovic Marin/AP)

Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced at the time that if progress was not made soon, President Donald Trump was likely to “move on.” In a potential sign of the administration’s frustrations with the talks, Rubio decided against flying to London for the talks on Tuesday mere hours before his expected departure.

“Secretary Rubio is a busy man,” said State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce. “While the meetings in London are still occurring, he will not be attending, but that is not a statement regarding the meetings. It’s a statement about logistical issues in his schedule.”

Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, is also not attending but will travel to Russia later this week to continue working on a peace plan. The top official representing the U.S. will be presidential envoy Keith Kellogg. Ukraine plans to send much higher-level officials, including its foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, and the head of the presidential office, Andriy Yermak.

Trump told reporters Monday that he would be releasing details of the U.S. proposals “over the next three days.”

The U.S. pitch in Paris, including the offer to recognize Crimea, came after Witkoff visited Moscow for an hours-long meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin this month. The envoy is expected to visit Moscow again later this week.

One of the people briefed on the proposal described it as “Witkoff’s idea” for the U.S. to call Crimea Russian “without forcing Ukraine to recognize it.”

The State Department declined to comment on the specifics of proposals put before negotiators. “The only document shared in Paris was a list of potential options for discussion and feedback,” an official said.

U.S. officials have stressed that both sides in the conflict need to close the wide gaps in the negotiations.

“If it’s not possible — if we’re so far apart that this is not going to happen — then I think the president’s probably at a point where he’s going to say, well, we’re done,” Rubio told reporters last week.

The contentious proposal will be difficult for Ukraine to swallow. Russia’s seizure and subsequent annexation of Crimea in 2014 paved the way for its other acts of aggression against Ukraine, including its fomenting of the war in the eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions and then its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Earlier in the war, Ukrainian soldiers rallied around cries that their children would soon swim on the beaches of Crimea, and many see Crimea’s return to Ukraine as a nonnegotiable — especially families who have been separated for more than a decade.

“If what the media is reporting is true, then it is both sad and dangerous,” Ukrainian parliamentarian Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze told Interfax-Ukraine on Tuesday. “It means that the U.S. is not actually seeking a just and lasting peace, but rather wants to report some kind of temporary truce at the expense of concessions to the aggressor — and present this as a great achievement of the United States.”

The recognition of Crimea as Russian would deal a significant blow to Ukrainian morale, but Russia’s grip on the peninsula has long been acknowledged by military analysts and political leaders.

Since early 2023, the Pentagon’s top military analysts have downplayed the possibility of Ukraine retaking Crimea by military force in classified briefings with lawmakers.

Zelensky has never given up the goal of Ukraine someday reasserting control over Crimea, but has spoken frankly about Kyiv’s military limitations.

“We do not have enough forces to return Crimea,” Zelensky told reporters last year. “Our army does not have enough forces. We must seek diplomatic means.”

European leaders have succeeded in elbowing into the peace talks in recent weeks, an improvement over the Trump team’s first discussions with the Russians in Saudi Arabia that excluded even the Ukrainians. Now, in London and beyond, they will look for ways to use their influence in favor of Ukraine.

Europe does have some leverage to apply, including billions in seized or frozen Russian assets that could be returned or used to fund postwar reconstruction programs. The European Union, meanwhile, offers member states a coordinated way to magnify its sanctions program.

“The Europeans have real cards to play,” Rahman, the analyst, said. “If you don’t get sanctions relief from the E.U. side and just from the U.S., the economic benefits to Russia would be marginal.”

One E.U. diplomat, familiar with the discussions around the U.S. proposals, said expectations remained low for progress in the next round of negotiations.

“It is up to the Ukrainians to decide whether those terms are something they would like to talk about,” the diplomat said.

Leaving Crimea, home to the key Black Sea port of Sevastopol, in Moscow’s hands would have serious implications across the continent, experts said.

“Crimea, in particular, is so strategically important for European security that there can be absolutely no interest in Europe in Crimea coming under any form of permanent Russian control or being recognized under international law,” said Stefan Meister of the German Council on Foreign Relations.

Hudson reported from Washington and Hendrix from London. Adam Taylor in Washington, Kate Brady in Berlin, Serhiy Morgunov in Potsdam, Germany, and Beatriz Ríos in Brussels contributed to this report.

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