With Russian President Vladimir Putin set to be officially sworn in for another term on Tuesday, Ukraine made an extraordinary appeal to its international partners \u2013 do not recognize him as a legitimate leader.<\/p>\n
In a statement published Monday, Ukraine\u2019s foreign ministry declared \u201cno legal grounds\u201d exist for viewing Putin as a \u201cdemocratically elected and legitimate president of the Russian Federation.\u201d The strident call came just a day before the Kremlin\u2019s choreographed inauguration ceremony formalizing Putin\u2019s rule until 2028.<\/p>\n
\u201cRussia has irreversibly transformed into a source of danger for the entire democratic world,\u201d the ministry stated, accusing the Kremlin of turning the Russian state into \u201can appendage of Putin\u2019s personal interests.\u201d It argued that sham elections marred by repression and censorship render any claim to democratic legitimacy null and void.<\/p>\n
The provocative demand for allies to symbolically delegitimize Putin\u2019s rule reflects the scorched-earth nature of relations between Kyiv and Moscow. Over a year into Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine, the two nations remain mired in an existential military conflict with no clear diplomatic offramp.<\/p>\n
While unlikely to be heeded by most nations, Ukraine\u2019s appeal taps into growing international wariness over Putin\u2019s continuation of his two decades of authoritarian rule in Russia. The imprisonments of opposition figures, curbs on free media, and a crackdown on dissent have steadily eroded Russia\u2019s democratic bona fides during his tenure.<\/p>\n
Western powers have already taken punishing measures against Putin and his inner circle, imposing severe personal and economic sanctions over the war in Ukraine. However, the step of not recognizing Putin\u2019s legitimacy as head of state would be an additional symbolic escalation.<\/p>\n
So far, the United States, European Union and others have remained circumspect, refusing to directly brand Putin an illegitimate leader and acknowledging Russia\u2019s status as a nuclear-armed U.N. Security Council member. But Kyiv sees delegitimizing Putin on the world stage as another tool to politically and diplomatically isolate the Kremlin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ukraine\u2019s foreign ministry declared \u201cno legal grounds\u201d exist for viewing Putin as a \u201cdemocratically elected and legitimate president of the Russian Federation.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":406,"featured_media":15734,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[78,366,9423,215],"class_list":["post-15733","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-russia","tag-russia","tag-russia-ukraine-war","tag-russian-federation","tag-ukraine"],"reading_time":"2 min read","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15733","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/406"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15733"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15733\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}