Give up Crimea and Agree Never To Join NATO – Trump To Ukrainian President

Volodymyr Zelensky (left) and Donald Trump (right) seated during their first meeting in the White House earlier in 2025

US President, Donald Trump, has told Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, to give up Crimea, a Ukrainian territory illegally seized by Russia in 2014.

President Trump has also told Zelensky to agree never to join NATO.

Trump’s calls for Ukraine to give up Crimea and never to join NATO are reportedly part of a peace deal with Russia.

The US President made the calls as Zelensky arrived in the US to hold talks with him today, Monday, August 18, 2025. The talks which several European leaders will participate in, will focus on Ukraine’s future and its war with Russia.

Trump and Zelensky’s meeting today at the White House – their second this year – comes on the back of President Trump’s meeting with Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, in Anchorage, Alaska on Friday, August 15, 2025.

About Crimean

Crimea is a peninsula on the Black Sea. It was illegally annexed by Russia in 2014.

Few shots were fired, but Crimea was seized at gunpoint and at least two Ukrainian soldiers are known to have been shot dead by Russian forces.

Russian leader Vladimir Putin later admitted hatching the land-grab in an all-night meeting with his officials days after Ukraine’s pro-Russian leader Viktor Yanukovych was ousted in Kyiv.

In 1991, along with the rest of Ukraine, Crimea voted for independence from the collapsing Soviet Union.

But for historical and contemporary political reasons, Russians have long described Crimea as part of their territory – a controversial claim Putin has repeated often, and one which has been rejected by most other nations.

Crimea is legally viewed as still being part of Ukraine, despite its illegal seizure by the Kremlin.

After annexing it, Russia quickly organised a referendum in March 2014. The result, in which Crimeans apparently voted to join Russia, was swiftly rejected as a sham by the international community.

Zelensky has been adamant that he has no power to give up Crimea – and has repeatedly rejected any suggestion his country should give up it’s claim to it.

“There’s nothing to talk about here,” Zelensky says in April this year. “This is against our constitution.”

Article two of Ukraine’s constitution states that its sovereignty “extends throughout its entire territory” which “within its present border is indivisible and inviolable”. Any change to Ukraine’s territory has to go to a national referendum, which must be authorised by the Ukrainian parliament.