Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has refused to acknowledge that Ukraine lost the annexed Crimean Peninsula. This claim was fabricated by Russian propaganda in another attempt to “legitimize” the annexation.
Kremlin media and social media users are spreading reports that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky allegedly “acknowledged” the loss of Russia-annexed Crimea. The propagandists either claim that Zelensky made this statement in an interview with the American television network Fox News, or they provide no source for this “news” at all.
After this information started circulating, StopFake decided to investigate whether President Volodymyr Zelensky had actually “acknowledged” the loss of Crimea. Not surprisingly, this claim turned out to be a complete fabrication by propagandists.
On November 20, 2024, Fox News published an excerpt from an interview with Zelensky in which he discussed Crimea. During the interview, Fox News correspondent Trey Yingst asked Zelensky about the possibility of territorial concessions to reach peace agreements with Russia. Zelensky categorically ruled that out.
“We cannot legally acknowledge any occupied territory of Ukraine as Russian. That is about those territories occupied by Putin before the full-scale invasion, since 2014. Legally, we are not acknowledging that, we are not adopting that. On the other hand, we understand that so far we do not have that much force so we can push Putin back to the 1991 borders with weapons,” the president said.
Yingst then asked a follow-up question about Russia’s annexation of Crimea.
“We cannot spend dozens of thousands of our people so that they perish for the sake of Crimea coming back… we understand that Crimea can be brought back diplomatically,” Zelensky replied.
StopFake also reviewed other excerpts of the interview published by Fox News and found no mention of Zelensky giving up Ukrainian territory. This supposed “admission” was completely fabricated by propagandists as part of their ongoing effort to “legitimize” the annexation of Crimea.
Previously, StopFake debunked a similar Russian media fake that claimed Ukraine was ready to give up Crimea and Donbass for negotiations with Russia.
