A former adviser to President-elect Donald Trump says the incoming administration will focus on achieving peace in Ukraine rather than allowing the country to regain territory occupied by Russia.

Bryan Lanza, who worked on Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign, told the BBC that the incoming administration would ask Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for his version of a “realistic vision for peace”.

“And if President Zelensky comes to the table and says, well, we can only have peace if we have Crimea, he’s showing us that he’s not serious,” he said. “Crimea is gone.”

A Trump spokesman distanced the president-elect from those remarks, saying Lanza “doesn’t speak for him.”

Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula in 2014. Eight years later, it launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine and occupied territories in the east of the country.

The president-elect has consistently said his priority is ending the war and stemming what he describes as a drain on US resources in the form of military aid to Ukraine.

But he has yet to divulge how he plans to do that — and is likely to hear competing visions for Ukraine’s future from his various advisers.

Mr. Lanza, a Trump political adviser during his 2016 and 2024 campaigns, did not mention areas of eastern Ukraine but said regaining Crimea from Russia was unrealistic and “not the goal of the United States.”

“When Zelensky says we will only stop this fighting, there will be peace only once Crimea is returned, we have news for President Zelensky: Crimea is gone,” he told the BBC World Service weekend programme.

“And if that’s your priority to take back Crimea and have American soldiers fight to take it back, you’re on your own.”

The US has never deployed US soldiers to fight in Ukraine, nor has Kiev asked US troops to fight on its behalf. Ukraine only asked for US military aid to arm its own soldiers.

Mr. Lanza said he has tremendous respect for the Ukrainian people, whose “hearts are made of lions.” But he said the US priority was “peace and stopping the killing”.

“What we’re going to say to Ukraine is you know what you see? What you see as a realistic vision for peace. It’s not a vision for winning, it’s a vision for peace. And let’s start having an honest conversation,” he said. .

In response, Mr Zelensky’s adviser Dmytro Lytvyn characterized Mr Lanza’s remarks as putting pressure on Ukraine for peace when “Putin was the one who wants more war”.

“Putin is losing most of his men to frontline attacks. What does that indicate? It’s obvious he wants to fight on,” he said.

“Ukraine offers peace from 2022 – there are quite realistic proposals. And it is Russia that needs to be made to hear that peace is needed and that peace needs to be reliable, so that there is simply no repetition of Russian attacks.”

A spokesman for Trump’s transition team — which prepares the incoming administration for office — said Lanza was “a contractor for the campaign” but “does not work for or speak for President Trump.”

Trump is expected to handle peace talks with a close circle of advisers once in office.

An anonymous National Security Council adviser who previously served under Trump told the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday: “Anyone — no matter how high up in Trump’s circle — who claims to have a different view or a more detailed window into his plans regarding Ukraine simply does not have. knows what he’s talking about.”

They said the former president “makes his own calls on national security issues” and has done so “many times at this point.”

Trump spoke to Zelensky after winning the election, with billionaire Elon Musk also participating in the call.

A source in Ukraine’s presidential office told the BBC that the “long and good conversation” between Zelensky and Trump lasted “about half an hour”.

“It wasn’t really a conversation to talk about very substantial things, but overall it was very warm and pleasant.”

Trump’s Democratic opponents have accused him of cozying up to Russian President Vladimir Putin and say his approach to the war amounts to a capitulation to Ukraine that will endanger all of Europe.

Last month, Zelensky presented the Ukrainian parliament with a “victory plan” that included a refusal to cede the territories and sovereignty of Ukraine.

During his election campaign, Trump repeatedly said he could end the war between Russia and Ukraine “one day,” but never gave further details.

An op-ed by two of his former national security chiefs in May said the U.S. should continue supplying arms but condition support on Kiev entering peace talks with Russia.

Ukraine should not give up hope of recovering all its territory from Russian occupation, the paper says, but should negotiate based on the current front lines.

Earlier this week, Putin congratulated Trump on his election victory and said Trump’s claim that he can help end the war in Ukraine “at least deserves attention.”

Lanza also criticized the support the Biden-Harris administration and European countries have given to Ukraine since Russia’s February 2022 full-scale invasion.

“The reality on the ground is (that) the European nation-states and President Biden have not given Ukraine the ability and the weapons to win this war from the very beginning, and they have failed to lift sanctions so that Ukraine can win,” he said.

Earlier this year, the US House of Representatives approved a $61bn (£49bn) military aid package for Ukraine to help fight the Russian invasion.

The US was Ukraine’s biggest arms supplier – between February 2022 and the end of June 2024, it delivered or contracted $55.5bn (£41.5bn) worth of weapons and equipment, according to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, a German research. organization.

Clarification: This article has been amended to reflect that Bryan Lanza stopped working as an adviser to the Trump campaign after the election.