CNN World Why Trump’s Crimea proposal would tear down a decades-old pillar of the global order Ivana Kottasová - Published 8:39 AM EDT, Fri April 25, 2025

 CNN  World

Why Trump’s Crimea proposal would tear down a decades-old pillar of the global order

Ivana Kottasová

By Ivana Kottasová, CNN

 6 minute read 

Published 8:39 AM EDT, Fri April 25, 2025

US President Donald Trump speaks with reporters outside the White House in Washington, DC, on April 23, 2025. Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

CNN

 — 

US President Donald Trump’s suggestion that Ukraine should recognize Russia’s control over Crimea, the southern Ukrainian peninsula that Moscow annexed more than a decade ago, is threatening to upend international law and order.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has long made it clear this is a red line for him.

“There is nothing to talk about. It is against our constitution,” he told reporters on Tuesday.

Trump scolded Zelensky for that remark, accusing him of making it “so difficult to settle this war” and saying Crimea was “lost years ago.” It is a topic Trump revisited in an interview with Time magazine, saying as part of his proposal to end the war “Crimea will stay with Russia. And Zelensky understands that, and everybody understands that it’s been with them for a long time.”

This spat between the two presidents has put the region firmly back on the agenda. Here’s what we know.

Is this legal?

No. If the Trump administration was to somehow recognize Russian sovereignty over Crimea, it would be breaching international law as well as multiple declarations and agreements made by the United States, including by the first Trump White House.

Independence Square in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv on Friday.

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“In terms of international law, such a pronouncement would be null and void,” said Sergey Vasiliev, an international law expert and professor at the Open University in the Netherlands.

“That territorial acquisitions that result from the use of force shall not be recognized as legal is basically one of the bedrock principles of international law,” Vasiliev told CNN.

Recognizing Crimea as part of Russia would put the Trump administration in breach of the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, in which the US made a commitment to respect Ukraine’s sovereignty and borders, in exchange for Kyiv giving up its nuclear weapons.

In 2018, during the first Trump administration, then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issued a statement reaffirming the US’ refusal to recognize the Kremlin’s claims of sovereignty over Crimea.

Police officers stand guard during a rally to celebrate the second anniversary of Russia's annexation of Crimea, just off Moscow's Red Square in March 2016. Ivan Sekretarev/AP

Carla Ferstman, a law professor at Essex University and director of its Human Rights Centre, said that recognition of Russia’s sovereignty over Crimea by the US “could in principle provide some weight” to Moscow’s claim that the peninsula’s status was decided in a 2014 referendum that was condemned by Western powers as a sham.

“Far more likely, however, is that such a declaration creates a further rift between Europe and the US, and within NATO,” she said.

Recognizing Crimea as Russian would also be illegal under Ukraine’s constitution – which is one of the reasons why Zelensky said it was out of the question.

But Vasiliev said that even if Ukraine changed its constitution and signed some sort of agreement handing sovereignty of Crimea to Moscow, this could be considered invalid if Kyiv was coerced into it.

What would it mean in practice?

Since any recognition of Crimea as part of Russia would be in breach of international laws and norms, it is unlikely that other countries would follow in the US’ footsteps.

“Given the fluidity of US positions under the Trump administration, it is not clear that it would have any practical impact,” Ferstman said.

“If this manifested into a clear and permanent position of the US, then it would make it more difficult for the US to engage in collective efforts in support of Ukraine and would make the gulf between the US and other NATO partners more entrenched,” she added.

Why is Crimea so important to Ukraine?

Crimea has been part of independent Ukraine since the country split from the Soviet Union in 1991.

Roughly 2.5 million people lived in Crimea before its illegal annexation in 2014 and many more would regularly visit the tourist hotspot, known for its beaches and nature reserves.

Many other Ukrainians have emotional links to the peninsula.

How did Russia annex Crimea?

The crisis in Crimea started shortly after the 2014 mass protests in Ukraine that toppled the country’s Russian-backed regime of Viktor Yanukovych.

As the nation grappled with the chaos caused by the Maidan protests, Russian soldiers dressed as civilians or in uniform without identifying insignia – at the time referred to as “little green men” – started popping up outside government buildings and military bases across Crimea.