President Donald Trump rebuked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky over his comments that recognizing Russia’s annexation of Crimea, which occurred more than a decade ago, would violate the country’s constitution.

While Trump said in a Wednesday Truth Social post that “nobody is asking Zelensky to recognize Crimea as Russian Territory,” he added, “The situation for Ukraine is dire — he can have Peace or, he can fight another three years before losing the whole Country.”

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His comments came in response to comments made a day earlier by Zelensky in which he said, “There is nothing to talk about,” in response to recognizing Russia’s annexation of Crimea. “This violates our Constitution. This is our territory, the territory of the people of Ukraine.”

Trump said the remarks are “very harmful to the Peace Negotiations with Russia.”

Senior U.S. leaders, including the president, have warned that if Ukraine and Russia do not make progress on a deal in the near future, the U.S. could walk away from its mediating role. Ukraine wants an “immediate, full, and unconditional ceasefire,” Zelensky said, while Kremlin leaders have dragged their feet on ending the conflict.

Russia annexed Crimea illegally in 2014.

Earlier this month, Steve Witkoff, the president’s envoy leading the negotiations, said a peace deal would likely center on the five territories Russia annexed, Crimea and four others that they seized since it launched its full-scale operation in 2022.

The other four territories are Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson. Russia held sham referendums in those areas that were widely denounced as both fraudulent and coerced.

“This peace deal is about these so-called five territories,” Witkoff said on Fox News last week. “But there’s so much more to it. I think we might be on the verge of something that would be very important for the world at large.”

Vice President JD Vance indicated on Wednesday that the U.S.’s proposal would likely freeze battle lines as new boundaries.

“The current lines, or somewhere close to them, is where you’re ultimately, I think, going to draw the new lines in the conflict,” he said in India. “Now, of course, that means the Ukrainians and the Russians are both going to have to give up some of the territory they currently own.”

The vice president called the proposal “very explicit” and added, “It’s time for them to either say yes or for the United States to walk away from this process.”

It’s unclear if the Trump administration is serious about ending its efforts to see an end to the conflict or how it would approach relations with both countries if that were to occur.

Neither Ukrainian nor Russian leaders have said they would be willing to accept giving up territory occupied by the other. Russian forces currently occupy about 20% of Ukrainian territory, while Ukrainian forces hold a relatively small chunk of Russian territory in the Kursk region that it has steadily given up in recent months.

Zelensky has long said he would refuse any proposal that included giving up the Russian-occupied territories, which are in eastern and southern Ukraine.

A Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said they “certainly welcome” the U.S.’s mediating efforts, adding, “Our interactions are ongoing but, to be sure, there is a lot of nuances around the peace settlement that need to be discussed.”

Witkoff is set to travel to Russia this week to further the negotiations, though Trump has expressed frustration at both Putin and Zelensky for the apparent lack of progress.

HEGSETH ACKNOWLEDGES SHARING ‘UNCLASSIFIED’ INFO IN SIGNAL CHATS ‘THEN AND NOW’

Lower-level diplomats from the U.S., Ukraine, Britain, France, and Germany gathered in London on Wednesday to further the settlement discussions. More senior officials had been planning to attend, but the State Department announced on Tuesday that Secretary of State Marco Rubio no longer planned to go to the meeting.

The Trump administration has pushed for a negotiated end to the war solo, creating a rift that didn’t exist previously between the U.S. and many European allies that want to see Ukraine prevail.