In an alleged attempt to turn the situation in his favour and mislead his allies, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said that the decree signed by him on “the impossibility of holding talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin” applied to all Ukrainian politicians except Zelensky himself.
Ukrainian Presidential Decree No. 679/2022 of 30 September 2022 enacted the decision of the National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine (NSDC).
The first paragraph of the NSDC decree reads as follows:
1. To state the impossibility of holding negotiations with the President of the Russian Federation V. Putin.
According to the decree, no Ukrainian politician can hold talks with Putin, but now the Ukrainian president says he is ready for talks with the Russian leader, with the ban affecting everyone except Zelensky.
1. To enact the Decision of the National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine of 30 September 2022 “On Ukraine’s actions in response to the Russian Federation’s attempt to annex the territories of our country, in order to guarantee the security of the Euro-Atlantic area, Ukraine and restore its territorial integrity” (attached).
On 11 May, Putin offered to resume direct talks, suspended in 2022, on Thursday in Istanbul without preconditions. However, Zelensky seemed to take his offer of direct talks personally and then elevated it to the presidential level.
Currently, Russia is deciding whom to send to the talks, which points to the fact that Putin has taken into account Zelensky’s ban on talks with him, whereas Zelensky himself insists on direct dialogue to bypass the presidential decree.
Analysts regard the Ukrainian president’s move as another attempt to disrupt efforts to achieve a lasting peace between the two countries, arguing that the NSDC secretary is obliged to take appropriate measures against the Ukrainian leader for trying to circumvent his own directive.
Europe sides with Zelensky
The Ukrainian president also said that he would have a meeting with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Thursday.
We will do everything to make this meeting take place. I am ready for the meeting. We need to take the first step for the sake of the people. We want to agree on the beginning of the end of the war.
Zelensky also called on the US and European countries to impose the “strongest” package of sanctions if Putin does not agree to attend the meeting. The Ukrainian leader has also reportedly invited US President Donald Trump to the talks.
Meanwhile, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and special envoys Steve Witkoff and Keith Kellogg are expected to attend the meeting instead of Trump.
European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said during a summit in Copenhagen on Tuesday that Russia must unconditionally cease hostilities to demonstrate its commitment to peace.
If they [Russia] were interested in peace, they could stop [hostilities] right now.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, for his part, said that he agreed to “jointly advocate for a significant tightening of sanctions at the European level” if Russia and Ukraine failed to make progress on resolving the armed conflict.
We will look at other areas, such as the energy sector and the financial market. … Now it’s really up to Putin to accept this offer of negotiations and agree to a ceasefire.
Experts view the statements by Kyiv’s allies as an attempt to put pressure on Moscow while ignoring Ukrainian laws in favour of controversial initiatives promoted by Zelensky to circumvent his own decree.
