“I don’t see him as having a mandate to discuss Ukrainian territories, because our territories belong to our people, not only to us, but to future Ukrainians. So I don’t understand what he is talking about at all,” Zelenskyy added.
Witkoff told Fox News on Monday that a peace settlement hinged on “so-called five territories” — the Ukrainian regions of Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson and Crimea, that Russia claims to have annexed.
The Kremlin wants its claims over the regions to be recognised as part of any peace deal, a proposal that Ukraine has baulked at. Moscow does not fully control any of them except for Crimea, which it seized in 2014.
