US Could Recognize Crimea as Russian in Ukraine Peace Deal, Reports Say (2025)

U.S. officials are open to recognizing the illegally annexed Crimean peninsula as Russian territory as part of a wider peace deal in Ukraine, according to reports.

American news outlets, citing sources familiar with the matter, said that acknowledging Moscow’s control over the region on the Black Sea – which was seized by force in 2014 – was part of a draft framework proposed by U.S. diplomats.

The proposal could also mean freezing the war along current frontlines, leaving parts of eastern and southern Ukraine currently under Russian military occupation in Moscow’s hands, Bloomberg reported.

While the plans is at this stage incomplete, it was shared with European and Ukrainian officials during talks in Paris on Thursday, CNN wrote. It was also disclosed to Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov during a phone call with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

With little progress being made in peace negotiations, Rubio and President Donald Trump said on Friday that they were willing to walk away from discussions on bringing an end to the three-year-long full-scale conflict.

Ukraine has agreed in principle to a 30-day comprehensive ceasefire, but Russia has set a number of conditions it says must be met before agreeing to a pause in fighting. Both sides approved to halt attacks on energy infrastructure, although they have since accused each other of breaching the deal.

Ukraine against border changes

The question of Ukraine’s future borders could be central to U.S. attempts to forge a compromise.

Russia took Crimea from Ukraine in March 2014 and then backed pro-Russian separatists in the eastern Donbas region, before launching a wider invasion in 2022.

Along with Crimea, Russia currently partially occupies Ukraine’s Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, and has formally annexed them – a move unrecognized by the international community.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said this month that Kyiv would not formally recognize any Ukrainian territory as part of Russia as part of any peace deal.

“Our people have fought for this, our heroes died,” he said, cited by the Kyiv Independent website. “No one will forget about it... This is the most important red line. We will not let anyone forget about this crime against Ukraine.”

However, polling suggests that more Ukrainians are willing to accept territorial concessions in return for peace as the war drags on.

Ukraine has also toned down its rhetoric around a possible return to the country’s pre-2014 borders as the U.S. presses for peace. Trump’s Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has said that returning areas that have been under Russian control for over a decade was unrealistic, calling it an “illusionary goal” that “will only prolong the war and cause more suffering.”