Zelenskyy on Trump's statement on Crimea: Ukraine won’t legally recognize any temporarily occupied territories as Russian
Only the Ukrainian people have the right to decide which territories are Ukrainian, Ukraine will never legally recognize any temporarily occupied territories as Russian, said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, answering a question from an Interfax-Ukraine correspondent regarding US President Donald Trump's statement that Crimea should remain Russian.
"Our position is unchanged: only the Ukrainian people have the right to decide which territories are Ukrainian. And the Constitution of Ukraine decides: all temporarily occupied territories are temporarily occupied, they all belong to Ukraine, to the Ukrainian people. Ukraine will not legally recognize any temporarily occupied territories," Zelenskyy told reporters on Friday.
The President stressed that this is an absolutely fair position, which is also legal from the point of view of international law.
"In this, even those countries that constantly balance between us and Russia, even they all recognize the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine, including the Crimean peninsula," the president added.
As reported, US President Donald Trump believes that Ukraine should never have raised the issue of joining NATO, and Crimea should remain Russian. He stated this in an interview with the Time ezine.