On 20 May 2024, the five-year presidential term of Volodymyr Zelenskyy ended. A few weeks before this date, Ukraine’s Justice Minister Denys Maliuska announced that President Zelenskyy will not lose his legitimacy on 21 May, and his powers will continue until the next head of state is elected. Maliuska expressed his opinion on this matter in an interview with BBC News Ukrainian.
To be frank, he had every reason to announce this at BBC, given that Kremlin-backed Russian news agencies such as RIA Novosti were claiming that Zelenskyy becomes an illegitimate president of Ukraine on 21 May as his five-year term in office ends.
When asked whether it would be more appropriate to appeal to Ukraine’s body that interprets the Constitution, to put the question of the president’s legitimacy to rest, Maliuska said: ’Given the communication and security situation in the country, it would be a huge mistake to officially and publicly question the legitimacy of the president now, so I think it makes no sense to appeal to the Constitutional Court at this time’.
’But many of the constitutional provisions are formulated in such a way that those who want to find something to complain about or build a conspiracy theory on something will find it’, he added.
’My five years are not over yet, they continue because of martial law’, Zelenskyy said in an interview for Reuters 21 May.
A strange situation has emerged, namely that neither the Ukrainian leadership recognises Putin as legitimate president of Russia, nor Moscow recognizes Zelenskyy as Ukraine’s legitimate head of state. However, it should be noted that the European Commission, which was quick to give support to Zelenskyy, has confirmed that it still considers Zelenskyy to be a legitimate president. The spokesperson of the European Commission for Foreign Affairs said that Ukraine cannot hold free elections because it is under attack by Russian missiles, drones and bombs, and millions of people have become displaced persons inside the country and outside its borders. At the same time, the European Parliament adopted a resolution which condemns the way Putin was re-elected, and called for the Russian presidential elections to be considered illegitimate.
The debate over whether Zelenskyy is a legitimate president and whether Putin is a legitimate head of state dominates the public sphere, despite the fact that this debate is pointless, that is in Russia, Vladimir Putin remains head of state for six additional years, while in Ukraine, Zelenskyy remains president with the sole difference that he continues his term until the next presidential election will take place… Disputes such as this lead nowhere, they are good for nothing but to marginalize discussions on the most important issue, which is peace.
However, for many, the only question that matters, that is truly relevant and that any Russian and Ukrainian citizen has the right to ask, regardless of where they live – in their home country or abroad – is when the two will be ready to sit down at the negotiating table and discuss when the senseless bloodshed will stop. Given that Ukraine is being supported, both in terms of weapons and funds, by a number of foreign countries, which are also hosting millions of Ukrainian refugees fleeing the war, the same question should also be addressed to those foreign governments.
When will the war end? This is the only appropriate and humane question in the 28th month of the war, and a few days before the Global Peace Summit in Switzerland.
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