MOSCOW, Apr 24: The Kremlin said on Thursday it agreed with US President Donald Trump, who said on social media that Ukraine had "lost" the Crimean peninsula seized by Russia in 2014 "years ago".
The Trump administration has been trying to broker a deal between Moscow and Kyiv to end the three-year conflict, floating the idea of recognising Russian control of Crimea as part of a peace settlement.
In a post on his Truth Social platform on Wednesday, Trump said Crimea -- a lush Black Sea peninsula with longtime Soviet and Russian naval facilities -- was "not even a point of discussion" and was "lost years ago".
"This completely corresponds with our understanding, which we have been saying for a long time," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters in response to an AFP question.
Ukraine has repeatedly said it will not cede Crimea under any settlement with Moscow.
Russia, which launched a full-scale military assault on its neighbour in February 2022, currently occupies around 20 percent of Ukraine and, in addition to Crimea, claims four other Ukrainian regions as its own. �"AFP
