Trump’s campaign adviser says Ukraine’s focus should be peace, not territory

A former adviser to President-elect Donald Trump says the incoming administration will focus on finding peace in Ukraine rather than the country’s ability to regain territory controlled by Russia.

Bryan Lanza, who worked on Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign, told the BBC that the incoming administration would ask Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for his version of a “realistic vision of peace”.

“And when President Zelensky came to the table and said, we can have peace only if we have Crimea, he shows us that he is not serious,” he said. “Crimea is gone.”

Trump’s spokesman distanced himself from the incoming president in these statements, saying that Mr. Lanza “does not speak for him”.

Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula in 2014. Eight years later, it invaded Ukraine in full and occupied the eastern part of the country.

The president-elect has consistently said his top priority is ending the war and ending what he describes as a waste of American resources, in the form of military aid to Ukraine.

But he has yet to reveal how he intends to do that – and he is likely to hear competing views on Ukraine’s future from his various advisers.

Mr Lanza, a political adviser to Mr Trump during his 2016 and 2024 campaigns, did not comment on eastern Ukraine, but said returning Crimea to Russia was not realistic and “not a goal of the United States”.

“When Zelensky said that we will stop this war, there will be peace only when Crimea is back, we have news from President Zelensky: Crimea is gone,” he told the BBC World Service’s Weekend program.

“And if that’s your goal to take Crimea back and have the American military fight to take Crimea back, you’re on your own.”

The US has never sent US troops to fight in Ukraine, and Kyiv has never asked US troops to fight for it. Ukraine has only asked for US military assistance to arm its forces.

Mr. Lanza said that he respects the people of Ukraine very much, “their hearts are made of lions”. But he said the priority for the US is “peace and stopping the killing”.

“What we are going to say to Ukraine is, you know what you see? What you see as a realistic vision of peace. It’s not a vision of victory, but a vision of peace. And let’s start having an honest conversation,” he said.

In response, Zelensky’s adviser Dmytro Lytvyn characterized Mr Lanza’s remarks as putting pressure on Ukraine for peace while “it is Putin who wants more war”.

“Putin lost most of his people when he was attacked before. What does this show? It is clear that he wants to fight,” he said.

“Ukraine has been offering peace since 2022 – there are realistic proposals. And it is Russia that we must hear that peace is necessary and that peace must be reliable, so that there is no repetition of Russian strikes.”

A spokesman for Trump’s transition team – which is preparing the incoming administration – said Mr Lanza was “a campaign contract”, but “does not work for President Trump and does not speak for him”.

Trump is expected to host peace talks with close aides once he takes office.

An unnamed National Security Council aide who worked under Trump told the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday: “Anybody — no matter how high up in Trump’s circle — who says they have a different view or a more detailed window into his plans for Ukraine doesn’t. He knows what he’s talking about.”

They said that the former president “makes phone calls on matters of national security” and has done this “many times now”.

Trump spoke to Zelensky after his election victory, with billionaire Elon Musk also taking part in the call.

A source in the office of the Ukrainian president told the BBC that the “nice long conversation” between Zelensky and Trump lasted “about half an hour”.

“It wasn’t really a conversation about important things, but overall it was warm and pleasant.”

Trump’s Democratic opponents have accused him of meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin and say his approach to war is tantamount to giving up on Ukraine, which would endanger all of Europe.

Last month, Zelensky presented a “victory plan” to the Ukrainian parliament that included a refusing to give up territories and sovereignty of Ukraine.

During his election campaign, Trump said he could end the war between Russia and Ukraine “in a day”, but did not provide any further details.

A paper written by two of his national security officials in May said the US should continue providing weapons, but make the support conditional on Kyiv entering peace talks with Russia.

Ukraine should not give up its hope of getting all of its territory from Russia’s takeover, the paper said, but should negotiate looking at the current front lines.

Earlier this week, Putin congratulated Trump on his election victory and said that Trump’s claim that he could help end the war in Ukraine “deserves at least some attention”.

Mr. Lanza also criticized the support the Biden-Harris administration and European countries have given Ukraine since it invaded Russia in February 2022.

“It’s a fact that actually exists [that] The European country and President Biden did not give Ukraine the strength and arms to win this war in the beginning and failed to remove the barriers for Ukraine to win,” he said.

Earlier this year, the US House of Representatives approved it a $61bn (£49bn) military aid package for Ukraine to help fight the Russian invasion.

The US has been the biggest supplier of arms to Ukraine – between February 2022 and the end of June 2024, it delivered or made weapons and equipment worth $55.5bn (£41.5bn), according to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, a German research firm. organization.

Explanation: This article has been amended to reflect that Bryan Lanza stopped working as an adviser to the Trump campaign after the election.