Ukraine’s Constitution Stands in the Way of Peace – Shoigu

Ukraine’s Constitution will prevent Kyiv from initiating peace talks with Russia and ending the war, Sergei Shoigu, Russia’s former Defense Minister and current Security Council Secretary, said on Thursday, March 20.

“The main difficulty is that their Constitution prohibits negotiations on changing territorial integrity,” Shoigu said, speaking to Russian state-run media TASS, appearing surprised that Ukraine wants to retain control of its borders. He called this the “main problem” in relation to peace talks.

Shoigu also said another issue is Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s ban on negotiating directly with Russian President Vladimir Putin. He added that Moscow is not sure “who to talk to” in Kyiv and questioned whether Zelensky is still Ukraine’s legitimate leader.

Zelensky banned negotiations with Putin in 2022 after Russia annexed parts of four Ukrainian regions. However, he recently clarified that the ban only applies to other Ukrainian functionaries - he retains the right to do so as head of state.

Before peace can happen, these “technical issues” – such as Ukraine’s commitment to its own sovereignty and its leadership - must be fixed, Shoigu said.

Ukraine’s Constitution states that its land cannot be given away. Zelensky has repeatedly said that Ukraine will not hand over its territory. In a recent conversation with US President Donald Trump, Zelensky warned that any agreement that freezes the war along the current lines of contact would leave many Ukrainian cities abandoned and lifeless.

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“If in some places you freeze the front line, you would be leaving entire cities or villages lifeless. No one will return to half of a city. And if they do, it will be like Berlin,” Zelensky said, alluding to reunified Germany’s capital city, which was divided by the infamous Berlin Wall from 1961 to 1989 when East Germany was a separate totalitarian state under Moscow’s dominion.

“Do we want Berlin, do we want many such cities?” he asked, rejecting the idea of dividing Europe again.

Meanwhile, Russia says it does not want “anything foreign,” according to Putin, but it also refuses to give up the land it has taken. Putin has said Ukraine must agree to cede the regions of Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson before peace talks can begin. Russia claimed its possession of these regions, along with Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula that it annexed in 2014, was legitimized by way of referendums held in September 2022 but considered as illegal by most nations, even though it does not fully control all of the territory.

Currently, Russian forces control most of Donetsk and Luhansk but only parts of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson. Moscow also occupies part of Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region.