What to know about Trump’s proposal to carve up Ukraine

Russia’s war on Ukraine may be entering a pivotal moment. President Donald Trump, who CNN reported Friday has been surprised and frustrated at the difficulty of achieving his promise of ending the war, wants Ukraine to give up territory in exchange for peace and essentially cede control of Crimea, the peninsula Russia first invaded in 2014. Russia controls nearly 20% of Ukraine, much of which could be lost under the current US proposal. The US is considering recognizing Crimea as part of Russia, even though its seizure was against international law. All Russian President Vladimir Putin has to do, in Trump’s thinking, is stop fighting, leaving Putin richly rewarded for invading Ukraine if he is able to officially keep so much territory. If Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky won’t budge, the US has threatened to withdraw support for Ukraine. What’s been happening? Trump’s top emissary, Steve Witkoff, met in person with Putin Friday in Moscow. Ukrainians have been in talks with Americans and Europeans in London, pursuing their version of a plan, in which a ceasefire would come before any discussion of ceding territory. Trump and Zelensky will both be at the Pope’s funeral in Rome over the weekend. Whether there will be a breakthrough for peace, the entire two-tracked process blows up, or inertia sets in and the war continues could become clear in the coming days. Meanwhile, hostilities continue. A Russian general was killed in a car bomb near Moscow Friday. Russian strikes are still targeting Ukraine’s cities, despite Trump’s admonition to Putin on social media, “Vladimir STOP.” Will Ukraine give up on Crimea? Trump thinks so. “Crimea will stay with Russia,” he told Time on April 22. “And Zelensky understands that, and everybody understands that it’s been with them for a long time,” Trump said. Russia first invaded Crimea in 2014 but despite moral outrage and sanctions, it did not face other consequences like it did later when it tried to invade the rest of Ukraine in 2022. Trump’s proposal for a cease fire seems to start with the idea that Crimea will be controlled by Russia. Zelensky has publicly rejected the idea of ceding Crimea. But other key Ukrainians seem to be open to the idea. Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko, a former champion boxer, told the BBC he is not involved in negotiations but that giving up Crimea might be necessary. “It’s not fair. But for the peace, temporary peace, maybe it can be a solution, temporary,” Klitschko said. Would a Crimea concession lead to a peace plan? Washington Post columnist David Ignatius argues that if the two sides can get past the Crimea issue, other details could be worked out, including whether European troops will backstop Ukraine’s security, and whether the US will have a presence, perhaps securing and running a nuclear power plant. CNN’s Nick Paton Walsh isn’t so sure, in large part because it’s not at all clear what Trump wants from Putin and whether Putin will give anything up. He writes: The overriding problem is Putin thinks time is on his side and Trump has repeatedly said the clock is ticking. These two contrasting positions will not yield a lasting deal. The Kremlin has perhaps wisely ascertained it can, over months, hive off tiny concessions from the White House, and slowly build a geopolitical picture that is more in its favour. Consider the first 90 days of Trump’s presidency and how far the world has already changed in Moscow’s favour. What’s wrong with the US recognizing Crimea as part of Russia? Russia violated international law by invading Crimea, as CNN’s Ivana Kottosová writes. Zelensky has so far rejected the idea of ceding Crimea, noting that to do so would violate Ukraine’s Constitution. If the US were to recognize Crimea as Russian, it would break America’s word multiple times over. From Kottosová’s report: Recognizing Crimea as part of Russia would put the Trump administration in breach of the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, in which the US made a commitment to respect Ukraine’s sovereignty and borders, in exchange for Kyiv giving up its nuclear weapons. In 2018, during the first Trump administration, then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issued a statement reaffirming the US’ refusal to recognize the Kremlin’s claims of sovereignty over Crimea. What does it mean if Putin is able to keep Crimea? “That means that he has basically upended the international order,” retired Col. Cedric Leighton, a CNN military analyst, said on CNN Friday. “In essence, what he’s done is created a situation where we go back to the 19th century, where might makes right, and that is what he wants,” Leighton said, comparing Putin’s actions to the invasion by Nazi Germany of Czechoslovakia in the 1930s. Ukrainians feel Crimea has been part of their country since the fall of the Soviet Union. In the decade-plus since Russia seized it Putin has worked to “Russify” Crimea. There are also resource considerations since Crimea and other contested portions of Ukraine are rich in oil, natural gas and other resources. Finally, Crimea sits on the Black Sea and offers important strategic advantages to Russia. What if Zelensky won’t budge and the US, as it has threatened, walks away? “What ‘walk away’ means is still a question that no one has really clear insight to,” according to Andrea Kendall-Taylor, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security and former US Deputy National Intelligence Officer for Russia and Eurasia. “Does it just mean that the United States will no longer be engaged in the diplomatic process in trying to end the war? Or does it mean that the United States will actually pack up and go home entirely, including ending any remaining military aid?” she told CNN’s Bianna Golodryga on CNN Max. Would Ukraine still fight without US support? Ukraine does rely on US support, particularly for air defenses and for intelligence. But it has also built up its own resources and leans on Europe. “Ukrainians will not stop fighting if the United States packs up its bags and walks away,” Kendall-Taylor said. It’s Ukrainian drones that are causing most of the casualties on Russian soldiers at this point, she said. Ukrainians are also producing longer-range drones that can strike within Russia, which means Ukraine may prefer to play for time to “convince Putin that he can’t stay in this conflict indefinitely.” Does Putin have any incentive to end the war? “Not a lot,” according to Kendall-Taylor. “And that’s exactly why we’ve seen such intransigence on his part in making any progress towards the war.” “It’s really in his interest to continue with the foot dragging, to try to demonstrate that they (Russia) are playing along so that they can preserve the US-Russia relationship,” she said. “(Putin’s) preferred outcome would be to preserve that relationship and get the United States to abandon Ukraine,” she said. Will Europe fill a US void? Michael Kimmage, a former State Department specialist on Russia and Ukraine who now directs the Kennan Institute at the Wilson Center told me that it already seems unlikely the US Congress will approve more spending to help Ukraine and that Europe, particularly Germany, is moving to step into that void. “This is profound,” he said of Germany’s pivot to prioritize security in its spending. “In a way, Trump is radicalizing German foreign policy, and there’s a need to go as fast as possible in the direction of independence (from the US), he said. “If Germany is going to spend a trillion dollars on defense in the next couple of years, a lot of that is going to go to go to Ukraine, or it’s going to be a backstop to supporting Ukraine.” But that’s a pivot that will take time. “It’s not as if the Germany can fill in on the in the short term for the United States, but it can balance out the erratic and basically anti-Ukraine nature of the Trump presidency,” he said.