Peace agreement with Ukraine/Trump: Crimea could be handed over to Russia

US President Donald Trump blamed his Democratic predecessors for Russia's illegal occupation of Ukrainian territory, which he said they gave him as a "gift".

President Trump said he believes his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy is ready to hand over occupied Crimea to Russia, an idea the Ukrainian government has long refused to consider.

At an informal press conference at a New Jersey airport, Trump was asked directly whether the Ukrainian president was ready to give up the peninsula, which Russia first occupied in 2014 in what has long been internationally condemned as an illegal invasion.

Trump was responding to a direct question about Zelenskyy's openness to the idea of ??giving up Crimea entirely.

"I think so. Don't talk to me about Crimea, talk to Biden and Obama," Trump said.  

Trump has repeatedly blamed his Democratic predecessors for Putin's two invasions of Ukraine.

"When you say Crimea, it was handed over during the presidency of a man named Barack Hussein Obama. That had nothing to do with me, Crimea, that was 11 years ago with Obama," Trump said.

Trump made similar remarks at a press conference in the Oval Office on Friday alongside visiting Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre and former NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. /CNA

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