In a decisive way Russian President Vladimir has ruled out the legitimacy of Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky to sign any possible peace deal. Putin has said that Zelensky can participate in possible talks with Moscow if he wishes to, but he lacks the legitimacy to actually sign a peace deal.
According to Putin negotiating with the Ukrainian leadership will not have any legal meaning, given that Kiev has consistently and explicitly denied from engaging in talks with Moscow.
In 2022, Zelensky, whose presidential term officially ended in May 2024, issued a decree prohibiting negotiations with Russia, a measure that remains in effect. Last week, Zelensky claimed the ban applies to all Ukrainian officials except himself, although the original decree did not specify a list of entities barred from talking to Russia, stating only that such negotiations were “impossible.”
“If we start negotiations now, they will be illegitimate… Because when the current head of the regime, that’s the only way to call [Zelensky] today, signed this decree, he was a somewhat legitimate president. But now he can’t cancel it, because he is illegitimate. That’s the trick, the catch, the trap,” Putin explained.
However the Ukrainian leadership could find a way out of this situation and circumvent the ban, Putin said, suggesting that the country’s parliament could do that. “According to Ukraine’s constitution, the president of Ukraine, even under martial law, cannot extend his term. Only the representative branch can have its term extended, that’s the Ukrainian parliament, while the president only has a five-year term, that’s it,” he said.
Putin’s Stance
Asked whether Moscow would actually talk to Zelensky if he expresses the desire to do so, Putin said the Ukrainian leader lacks any authority to actually strike any sort of deal with Russia.
“It’s possible to negotiate with anyone. However, due to his illegitimacy, [Zelensky] has no right to sign anything. If he wishes to participate in talks, I will deploy people who will conduct such negotiations,” Putin said. He stressed that signing any deal would be a “very serious question” and the agreement must “guarantee the security of both Ukraine and Russia” for a “serious” period of time.
Any potential peace agreement must be flawless from the legal standpoint, Putin emphasized, adding that the authority and legitimacy of Kiev’s negotiating team would be subjected to intense scrutiny and assessed by a whole team of legal experts.
Since taking over office the new US President Donald Trump has come forward with a proposal for a potential peace deal to end the Ukraine-Russia war, however nothing concrete has happened so far to further those moves. It is expected that the talks will only progress further when Trump and Putin have a face to face meeting to sort out a thorough line by line treaty that will be agreed on by all parties.
Putin has regularly indicated that he is inclined to end the war with a peace deal, only if Russia’s obvious security threats are negotiated. Russia wants NATO presence to be shifted away from its borders especially from its neighbouring nations. Trump has also agreed that he belives NATO should refrain from crossing the line and testing Russia’s resolve.
The Biden government however had a very different stand, they had supplied Ukraine with billions of dollars of military and civil aid. Ukraine President Zelensky had continued to harp on his war rhetoric looking to take on Russia and demanding more aid from the EU and US allies. Those deals could now be put on permanent hold under the newlook Trump administration.
