tippinsights Editorial Board, TIPP Insights
Vice President JD Vance, who was in India on an official visit, echoed President Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s comments that the United States would withdraw from the Russia-Ukraine peace talks if the two sides didn’t agree.
We’ve issued a very explicit proposal to both the Russians and the Ukrainians, and it’s time for them to either say yes or for the United States to walk away from this process …the only way to really stop the killing is for the armies to both put down their weapons, to freeze this thing and to get on with the business of actually building a better Russia and a better Ukraine.
Ukrainians reacted much as President Zelensky did during his visit to the White House. Yulia Svyrydenko, Ukraine’s First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy, posted this on X following similar comments by her boss, Zelensky:
As Ukraine’s delegation meets with partners in London today, we reaffirm a principled position: Ukraine is ready to negotiate—but not to surrender.
There will be no agreement that hands Russia the stronger foundations it needs to regroup and return with greater violence. A full ceasefire—on land, in the air, and at sea—is the necessary first step. If Russia opts for a limited pause, Ukraine will respond in kind.
Our people will not accept a frozen conflict disguised as peace. We will never recognize the occupation of Crimea. And if NATO membership is not granted, Ukraine will require binding security guarantees—ones strong enough to deter future aggression and clear enough to ensure lasting peace.
The world has applauded Ukraine for bravely fighting Russian aggression for the last 38 months. But fighting is one thing; recognizing that there are winners and losers in war is another. The uncomfortable truth is that Russia now occupies nearly 19% of Ukraine. With Americans ending support for an ‘as-long-as-it-takes’ war by re-electing President Trump to the White House in a landslide, Ukraine is unable to recover the territory it has lost.
President Donald Trump weighed in on the escalating rhetoric, sharply criticizing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s refusal to recognize the loss of Crimea. In a Truth Social post, Trump called Zelensky’s remarks “very harmful to the Peace Negotiations” and accused him of prolonging the war by clinging to unrealistic demands.
History is not on Zelensky’s side, either. Since World War II, when modern international laws regarding sovereignty, self-determination, and borders were adopted, the trend has always been that losing sides in war demand everything but often end up getting nothing. This truth is especially applicable to lost territory.
Consider the Falklands, a wild, rugged, remote set of islands located in the South Atlantic Ocean, about 300 miles east of Argentina’s coast. Britain has continuously controlled the island group since 1833. In 1982, Argentina invaded the Falklands, demanding that the islands (Islas Malvinas) belong to Argentina. The United Kingdom crushed Argentina in the conflict, and today, it remains firmly in control. Argentina continues to demand the islands back diplomatically by making speeches at the United Nations. But the United Kingdom has not budged.
Spain controlled Western Sahara until 1975, when it left. The Sahrawi Independence Movement wanted to form its own country and claimed it for itself. However, neighboring Morocco wanted the land and occupied most of the region. A guerrilla war followed, but there is still no final peace deal in place. Morocco controls most of the area, while the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic claims independence, but to no avail.
Consider Crimea, which is closer to the Russia-Ukraine conflict. From 1783 to 1954, Crimea was part of Russia, fostering a strong Russian cultural identity through literature, religion, and media. Sevastopol, home to Russia’s Black Sea Fleet since 1783, became a symbol of Russian military and artistic prestige. After the Russian Revolution (1917), Crimea briefly became an independent Soviet republic and later merged into the Soviet Union. During World War II, Nazi Germany briefly occupied Crimea, but Soviet leader Stalin regained complete control after expelling the Germans and the Crimean Tatars en masse in 1944. For ten years afterward, Crimea remained a part of the Soviet Union, just as Ukraine was.
Crimea and Ukraine were so integral to the Soviet state—they were not like satellite countries like Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Romania, Albania, or Bulgaria, all of which aligned themselves with the Soviet Union as part of the Warsaw Pact—that in 1954, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev (himself partly Ukrainian) gave Crimea to the Ukrainian Soviet Republic.
With the end of the Cold War, the Soviet satellites all broke away from the Warsaw Pact and became independent countries. East Germany merged with West Germany. In addition, the Soviet Union broke apart into 15 component countries – Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan. Had Khrushchev not gifted Crimea to Ukraine, there would have been 16 component countries, and Crimea, too, would have been an independent state.
The Russian language has been dominant in Crimea for centuries. According to the 2001 Ukrainian census, 77% of Crimea’s inhabitants picked Russian as their native language, compared to 11.4% for Crimean Tatar and 10.1% for Ukrainian. After Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, Ukrainian influence fell further. For example, Ukrainian-language schools dropped from 555 to just six by the end of 2014.
If history is any indication, Svyrydenko’s bold public claim, “We will never recognize the occupation of Crimea,” doesn’t make sense. Her stubborn insistence amounts to Ukraine using “a poison pill” strategy. Corporations routinely employ this trick to deter or prevent a hostile takeover by making themselves less attractive or more costly to the acquiring company.
The problem for Svyrydenko is that Russia has already been in firm control of Crimea for over 11 years, and the area is fully Russified. A poison pill strategy will only prolong the conflict – without American involvement – resulting in Russia occupying even more Ukrainian land beyond the nearly 19% it already controls.
