The Institute for the Study of War reported on 29 January that Vladimir Putin has signaled his intent to disregard future peace agreements with Ukraine.
Putin said that any peace deal would be invalid until Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy rescinds his 2022 decree banning negotiations with Russia.
This decree was a direct response to Russia’s illegal annexation of four Ukrainian oblasts: Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson. The decree explicitly prohibits Ukraine from conducting negotiations with Putin while he remains in power, reflecting Ukraine’s stance that any peace talks must respect its sovereignty and territorial integrity.
Putin claims that Zelensky is now unable to revoke this decree due to his alleged illegitimacy as president, arguing that only the Ukrainian parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, could annul it, although he acknowledges their lack of interest in doing so.
“Zelenskyy is no longer the legitimate president of Ukraine,” Putin claimed. He suggested that Ukraine’s parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, could rescind the decree instead.
ISW reported that this proposal contradicts Ukraine’s constitution, which does not give parliament the power to override presidential decrees.
The think tank reports that Putin and other Kremlin officials have repeatedly misinterpreted Ukrainian law to question Zelenskyy’s legitimacy after Ukraine followed its constitution by not holding elections during martial law in 2024.
Putin has previously negotiated with Ukrainian governments he called illegitimate, ISW points out. This included signing the Minsk agreements in 2014 and 2015. “Putin has consistently violated these agreements and used similar claims about the illegitimacy of the Ukrainian government to justify these violations,” ISW states.
The analysis suggests Putin aims to use these claims for multiple purposes. He wants to justify potential violations of future agreements; seeks to demand complete regime change in Kyiv; attempts to portray Ukraine as unwilling to negotiate.
The discussions about negotiations coincide with Donald Trump’s demands for a swift end to the war with his plan to put Ukraine and Russian at the table of negotiations.
Read also:
- Putin’s war against Ukraine to prove as fatal as Hitler’s USSR campaign, Zaluzhnyi says on Holocaust Remembrance Day
- ISW: Putin tells Russians to expect long war
- Zelenskyy: Ban on Russia talks blocked Putin’s shadow channels in Ukraine
