U.S. President Donald Trump said on Feb. 3 that his administration is continuing efforts to end the “ridiculous war” in Ukraine but will continue supporting Kyiv’s defense against the Russian aggression. In exchange for the military aid, Trump said, Ukraine must give the United States access to its rare earth elements essential for the high-tech industry.
Trump’s earlier statements about ending the war by mediating peace talks between Zelenskyy and Russian President Vladimir Putin have prompted an exchange of public statements between the warring parties.
On Feb. 1, Zelenskyy told The Associated Press that Putin would “derail” the negotiations even before they begin.
“Putin does not want negotiations. He will disrupt them. He will come up with reasons to derail the peace,” Zelenskyy said.
Putin has been doing just that. Since Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20, the Russian leader continuedly spoke about the “prospects of settlement” of what the Kremlin framed as a “Ukrainian crisis.”
In a Jan. 28 interview with VGTRK, the Russian state-owned broadcaster, Putin claimed that peace talks with Zelenskyy would be illegitimate due to Zelenskyy’s alleged “illegitimacy.”
“The president of Ukraine, even under conditions of martial law, has no right to extend his powers. … If we start negotiations now, they will be illegitimate.”
Why that is false:
Putin’s claim is based on the fact that Zelenskyy’s presidential term would have ended in May 2023. That would have been a valid cause if Russia had not waged a war against Ukraine and Kyiv had not imposed martial law because of the Russian aggression.
Zelenskyy imposed martial law on Feb. 24, 2022, following the Russian invasion. Ukraine’s parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, extended it multiple times as Russia intensified its air and land attacks across Ukraine.
The Ukrainian constitution prohibits lifting martial law while the country is at war. It also prohibits holding presidential elections while under martial law. Article 108 of the constitution states the incumbent remains president until a successor is elected.
Thus, Zelenskyy is Ukraine’s legitimate president.
Putin made similar statements in the past, attempting to spark a power struggle in Ukraine. However, Ukraine’s national parliament responded by reaffirming Zelenskyy’s legitimacy.
In January, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov falsely claimed that Zelenskyy became president because of a coup. In fact, Zelenskyy was elected in a democratic vote, which Russia initially acknowledged.
In his Feb. 1 interview with the AP, Zelenskyy suggested that the Kremlin’s attempts to discredit the Ukrainian presidency are aimed at excluding Kyiv from the peace negotiations and holding direct talks with the U.S. This would play into Russian propaganda as the Kremlin struggles to portray Ukraine as a Western pawn and not a sovereign nation, Zelenskyy said.
Thus, in his Jan. 28 interview, Putin repeated the Kremlin’s old propaganda cliché that the West and U.S. are “ready to fight against Russia to the last Ukrainian.”
Russian leaders have repeatedly used it to frame the war as a Western-driven conflict rather than Ukraine’s fight for survival.
In July 2022, Putin claimed the West sought to fight Russia “to the last Ukrainian.”
In March 2023, after meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Moscow, Putin accused the U.S. and Western nations of waging war “to the last Ukrainian,” while praising China’s stance as “neutral.”
By August 2023, the Russian presidential commission on historic truths added this narrative into the Russian school textbook. It states that the U.S. is determined to prolong the war at Ukraine’s expense and to fight “to the last Ukrainian.”
