After his Russian counterpart declined to hold peace talks with him and once again questioned his legitimacy, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Vladimir Putin of being reluctant to negotiate.
President Donald Trump’s increasing pressure on both sides to end the war coincided with the most recent exchange between the two leaders. Last week, Trump threatened to impose additional penalties on Moscow, claiming that Zelenskyy was willing to engage in negotiations to put an end to the nearly three-year-old conflict.
In a late-Tuesday post on X, Zelenskyy said that Putin had once again reaffirmed his fear of strong leaders, his fear of discussions, and his determination to keep the war going.
After Putin told state TV Rossiya 1 that the Ukrainian leader is illegitimate and therefore has no right to sign any documents, he made the remark.
Zelenskyy issued a decree formally declaring talks with Putin impossible, but leaving the door open for talks with Russia, shortly after Russia unilaterally declared in September 2022 that it had annexed areas in and around four eastern Ukrainian regions: Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk, and Zaporizhzhia.
Putin stated on Tuesday that the Ukrainian parliament should repeal this before any negotiations could begin and that attorneys should confirm the legality of Kyiv negotiators.
The easy route is always preferable, he continued, but we may also do it the hard way.
The martial law that Zelenskyy implemented during Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, which prevented elections, seems to be a contributing factor in Putin’s repeated assertion that Zelenskyy is not Ukraine’s legal leader.
Zelenskyy’s term would have ended in May of last year if the statute hadn’t been in existence.
Following Putin’s comments on Wednesday, Russia’s former president Dmitry Medvedev told Russian news agency Ria Novosti that Zelenskyy has only lost his legitimacy and that he might even run for reelection, but this would be very risky for him.
With Trump starting his second term and optimism growing that ceasefire negotiations are imminent, world leaders’ assessments on the conflict in Ukraine have shifted in recent weeks.