MOSCOW: A Ukrainian decree from 2022 that ruled out negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin raises the question of who could sit at the table in potential peace talks aimed at ending their three-year war, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Wednesday. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy “is still legally prohibited from negotiating with the Russian side,” Peskov noted during his daily conference call with reporters.
He said it was “positive” that Zelenskyy expressed readiness Tuesday to negotiate peace with Russia as soon as possible. “But the details have not changed yet,” Peskov added, apparently referring to the Ukrainian decree. Neither Ukrainian nor Western officials have recently mentioned the September 2022 presidential decree, signed seven months after Russia’s cross-border invasion, in the context of US President Donald Trump’s efforts to stop the fighting.
The Trump administration on Monday suspended its crucial military aid to Ukraine as the United States sought to pressure Zelenskyy into negotiating an end to the war. It wasn’t immediately clear whether the support would resume after Zelenskyy’s apparent effort to placate Trump. Ukrainian forces are toiling to slow advances by the bigger Russian army along the 1,000-kilometre front line, especially in the eastern Donetsk region. The Russian onslaught, which has been costly for its troops, hasn’t yet brought a strategically significant breakthrough for the Kremlin. The war of attrition has killed tens of thousands of soldiers and more than 12,000 Ukrainian civilians.
Zelenskyy, French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer could travel together to Washington, the French government spokesperson said Wednesday. “It is envisaged that President Macron could eventually travel again to Washington with President Zelenskyy and his British counterpart,” spokesperson Sophie Primas told reporters. She did not elaborate.
Macron’s office later said no trip to Washington is being planned at the moment. The reason for the discrepancy between the statements from Macron’s office and the government spokesperson was not immediately clear. Macron was due to give a televised address to the nation later Wednesday about what he called the “great uncertainty” in global affairs.
The three leaders travelled separately to Washington last week for meetings with Trump. Starmer didn’t comment on the possibility of a joint trip when he appeared in the British Parliament on Wednesday. His spokesman, Dave Pares, would not confirm such a trip. There was no immediate comment from Zelenskyy’s office.
In the early months of the war, Zelenskyy repeatedly called for a personal meeting with Putin but was rebuffed. After the Kremlin’s decision in September 2022 to illegally annex four regions of Ukraine — Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia — Zelenskyy enacted a decree declaring that holding negotiations with Putin had become impossible.
The decree enacted a decision by Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council to bolster Ukrainian defences and seek more weapons from the country’s Western allies. The Kremlin said at the time it would wait for Ukraine to sit down for talks on ending the conflict, noting that such a step may not happen until a new Ukrainian president takes office.
Meanwhile, a Russian court on Wednesday convicted and sentenced a British national captured last year fighting for Ukraine in the Kursk border region of Russia, according to court officials. James Scott Rhys Anderson was found guilty of terrorism and mercenary activities during an armed conflict and sentenced to 19 years in prison. The case was heard behind closed doors.
According to media reports at the time of his capture in November 2024, 22-year-old Anderson said he had served as a signalman in the British army for four years and then joined the International Legion of Ukraine, formed shortly after Russia’s invasion. Ukrainian forces captured parts of Kursk in a shock offensive in August 2024.
