Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy acknowledged the Crimea peninsula, seized by Russia in 2014, would have to be restored to Ukrainian sovereignty through diplomacy.

Axar.az reports that, citing Reuters, Zelenskyy, interviewed by Fox News on a train in Ukraine and broadcast on Wednesday, said his country could not afford to lose the number of lives that would be required to retake Crimea through military means.

He again rejected any notion of ceding any territory already occupied by Moscow’s forces, saying Ukraine “cannot legally acknowledge any occupied territory of Ukraine as Russian.”

“We cannot spend dozens of thousands of our people so that they perish for the sake of Crimea coming back ... and still it’s not a fact that we can bring it back with the arms in our hands. We understand that Crimea can be brought back diplomatically.”