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Zelensky admits that Ukraine cannot take Crimea back from Russia

"We don’t have enough support for this", also noted Vladimir Zelensky

MOSCOW, December 9. /TASS/. Vladimir Zelensky has admitted that Ukraine lacks strength and support to be able to take Crimea back from Russia.

US President Donald Trump said in an interview with Politico earlier that during his first meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in France back in 2019, Zelensky said that he wanted two things - "Crimea back" and NATO membership.

"As for Crimea, we don’t have enough strength to return <…> the Crimean Peninsula. Maybe I said this during the first meeting [with Putin]. I think I was right. To be frank, we don’t have enough strength for this. We don’t have enough support for this. But I said this at the first meeting. I think I can repeat this at the last meeting with Putin," he said in an audio posted by the Novosti. Live media outlet on its Telegram channel.

The Normandy Four (Russia, Germany, France, and Ukraine) leaders held seven-hour closed-door talks in Paris in 2019. Putin and Zelensky held a bilateral meeting on the summit’s sidelines. After about an hour-long meeting with the participation of the two countries’ delegations, they spoke one-on-one for about ten minutes. This was their only personal meeting.

The Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol, a city with a special status on the Crimean Peninsula, where most residents are Russian, refused to recognize the legitimacy of authorities brought to power amid riots during a coup in Ukraine in February 2014.

Crimea and Sevastopol adopted declarations of independence on March 11, 2014. They held a referendum on March 16, 2014, in which 96.7% of Crimeans and 95.6% of Sevastopol voters chose to secede from Ukraine and join the Russian Federation. Russian President Vladimir Putin signed the reunification treaties on March 18, 2014. The documents were ratified by Russia’s Federal Assembly, or bicameral parliament, on March 21.

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