Latest news:Trump administration ready to recognize Russian control of Crimea as part of framework to end Ukraine war, source says :read More

Trump administration ready to recognize Russian control of Crimea as part of framework to end Ukraine war, source says
By Kylie Atwood and Catherine Nicholls, CNN
4 minute read
Updated 8:55 AM EDT, Sat April 19, 2025
A woman walks past a mural depicting a soldier with the Russian flag in Simferopol, Crimea, on October 2, 2024.
A woman walks past a mural depicting a soldier with the Russian flag in Simferopol, Crimea, on October 2, 2024. Alexey Pavlishak/Reuters/File
CNN
—
The Trump administration is ready to recognize Russian control of Crimea as part of the US proposal to drive an end to the war with Ukraine, an official familiar with the framework told CNN on Friday.

Crimea, southern Ukraine, has been under Russian occupation since it was illegally annexed in 2014. Four other Ukrainian regions – Donetsk and Luhansk in the east and Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in the south – have also been partially occupied by Russia since its full-scale invasion in 2022.

There has been no immediate comment from Kyiv but the suggestion the US could recognize Russian control of Crimea is unlikely to be welcomed – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in March that his government would not recognize any occupied territories as Russian, calling that a “red line.”

Zelensky said at the time that the territories would “probably be one of the most sensitive and difficult issues” in peace negotiations, adding that, “for us, the red line is the recognition of the Ukrainian temporarily occupied territories as Russian. We will not go for it.”

The US proposal for an end to the war would also put a ceasefire in place along the front lines of the conflict, the source told CNN on Friday.

The framework was shared with the Europeans and the Ukrainians in Paris, France, on Thursday, the source said. It was also communicated to the Russians in a phone call between US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov..