Polish official warns Trump against "historical mistake" regarding Russia
www.pravda.com.ua
Sun, 06 Apr 2025 11:20:35 +0300
Pawe Kowal, Head of the Polish Council for Cooperation with Ukraine, which advises Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusks government on Ukraine, has warned that US President Donald Trump risks making a historical mistake if his negotiations to end the war in Ukraine result in Washington recognising Russias claims to Crimea and other occupied territories.
Source Financial Times FT, citing Kowal, as reported by European Pravda Details Kowal believes that Poland and the rest of Central Europe will consider a red line crossed if Russias expanded borders are legally recognised.
Kowal noted that there is a clear difference between provisional solutions to end the fighting in Ukraine and fulfilling Russian expectations to recognise Crimea, Donbas or other parts of Ukraine as Russia, which would be a historical mistake.
Kowal warned that if this sets a precedent that allows Kremlin ruler Vladimir Putin to expand imperial Russia, it would be horrible.
Russia, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, recognised Ukraine with their borders, also including Crimea and Donbas, and thats the basis of the rules of international law.
The international legal guarantees for borders in central Europe are also some of the main guarantees to keep peace in that region, according to our historical experience, he said.
Meanwhile, Kowal expressed confidence that Trump will not allow Russia to officially control Ukrainian territory but will instead recognise the ongoing threat posed by Putin.
He is also convinced that Trump will also not risk preventing American companies from investing in Ukraines postwar recovery without providing the strong security guarantees that Kyiv and its European allies want.
For the politicians, its very easy to separate political guarantees from business guarantees and from military guarantees, but if real corporate money is to invest in Ukraine, they will ask for serious American guarantees, Kowal said.
Background Recently, media reports suggested that Trump was considering recognising occupied Crimea as Russian territory as part of a potential agreement to end the war.
Commenting on these reports, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Trump had not raised the issue of Russianoccupied Crimea in conversations with him.
Meanwhile, Zelenskyy had previously acknowledged that territorial issues would be on the table of future peace talks to end the war.
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