President Volodymyr Zelensky insisted yesterday that Crimea belongs to Ukraine and that his position had not changed after statements by US President Donald Trump questioning the future status of the peninsula, annexed by Russia in 2014.Trump has criticised Zelensky for not agreeing to cede the Black Sea peninsula – seized by Russia and internationally recognised as Ukraine – as part as a potential deal to end the war.“Our position is unchanged: only the Ukrainian people have the right to decide which territories are Ukrainian. The constitution of Ukraine says that all the temporarily occupied territories… belong to Ukraine, to the Ukrainian people,” Zelensky told reporters in Kyiv. “Ukraine will not legally recognise any temporarily occupied territories.”“This is not our property, not my property. This is the property of the Ukrainian people who exist today, who will be born for generations to come, who will contribute to the development of our country,” he said, referring to territory, including Crimea, seized by Moscow.Trump has said that Ukraine “lost” Crimea “years ago” and that Kyiv did not fight for Crimea in 2014.“I agree with President Trump that Ukraine does not have enough weapons to regain control of the Crimean peninsula with weapons,” Zelensky said.Russia annexed Crimea after a pro-EU revolution in Kyiv and backed pro-Moscow rebels in eastern Ukraine.Meanwhile, the Kremlin has blamed Ukraine for a car bomb that killed a senior Russian military officer near Moscow yesterday, hours before Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff was due to meet President Vladimir Putin in Moscow.There was no official comment from Kyiv on the death of 59-year-old Yaroslav Moskalik, the latest in a series of Russian military officers and pro-war figures to be assassinated since the start of Russia’s war in Ukraine.Witkoff met Putin to discuss US proposals for ending the war, now well into its fourth year.“The Kyiv regime once again simply shows its true nature. The Kyiv regime continues to be involved in terrorist activity on the territory of our country,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a state TV reporter. “It shows once again that, despite the peace talks, we must be on guard and understand the nature of this regime.”Ukraine’s SBU intelligence service did not respond to a request for comment on the killing of Moskalik, who was deputy head of the Main Operations Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces.That position would have given him an important role in planning Russian military operations, including in Ukraine.State media said he held the rank of lieutenant-general.The body of a man lay on the pavement outside the entrance to an apartment building in the town of Balashikha, east of Moscow, near a burnt-out car.“The explosion occurred as a result of the detonation of a homemade explosive device filled with destructive elements,” investigators said in a statement.Ukraine’s SBU killed Lieutenant-General Igor Kirillov in a similar manner last December.Trump’s Ukraine envoy, General Keith Kellogg, said that attack violated the rules of warfare.Russian war bloggers described Moskalik as a rising star.He had participated in several high-level Russian delegations that have met Western officials to try to negotiate a settlement to the conflict in Ukraine.He also dealt with Syria, presenting a report on military-technical co-operation in Africa and the Middle East at a security forum in Moscow in 2021.Rybar, a Russian war blogger with more than 1.2mn subscribers on Telegram, said that Moskalik was viewed as “one of the most intelligent and demanding officers” in his directorate.The blogger said Moskalik was being considered to serve as head of the National Defence Management Centre, the supreme command and control centre of the Russian Armed Forces, due to his “systematic approach and thoughtfulness”.
