By Lena Surzhko Harned
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was shut out of the discussions concerning the future of his country, which took place in Saudi Arabia on Feb. 18, 2025. In fact, there were no Ukrainian representatives, nor any European Union ones – just U.S. and Russian delegations, and their Saudi hosts.
The meeting – which followed a mutually complimentary phone call between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin just days earlier – was gleefully celebrated in Moscow. The absence of Ukraine in deciding its own future is very much in line with Putin’s policy toward its neighbor. Putin has long rejected Ukrainian statehood and the legitimacy of the Ukrainian government, or as he calls it the “Kyiv regime.”
While the U.S. delegation did reiterate that future discussions would have to involve Ukraine at some stage, the Trump administration’s actions and words have no doubt undermined Kyiv’s position and influence.
To that end, the U.S. is increasingly falling in line with Moscow on a key plank of the Kremlin’s plan to delegitimize Zelenskyy and the Ukrainian government: calling for elections in Ukraine as part of any peace deal.
Questioning Zelenskyy’s legitimacy
Challenging Zelenskyy’s legitimacy is part of a deliberate ongoing propaganda campaign by Russia to discredit Ukrainian leadership, weaken support for Ukraine from its key allies and remove Zelenskyy – and potentially Ukraine – as a partner in negotiations.
Claims by the Russian president that his country is ready for peace negotiations appear, to many observers of its three-year war, highly suspect given Russia’s ongoing attacks on its neighbor and its steadfast refusal to date to agree to any temporary truce.
Yet the Kremlin is pushing the narrative that the problem is that there is no legitimate Ukrainian authority with which it can deal. As such, Putin can proclaim his commitments to a peace without making any commitments or compromises necessary to any true negotiation process.
Meanwhile, painting Zelenskyy as a “dictator” dampens the enthusiastic support that once greeted him from democratic countries. This, is turn, can translate to the reduction or even end of military support for Kyiv, Putin hopes, allowing him a fillip in what has become a war of attrition.
What Putin needs for this plan to work is a willing partner to help get the message out that Zelenskyy and the current Ukraine government are not legitimate representatives of their country – and into this gap the new U.S. administration appears to have stepped.
Genya Savilov/AFP via Getty Images)
Dictating terms
Take the narrative on elections.
At the meeting in Saudi Arabia, the U.S. reportedly discussed elections in Ukraine as being a key part of any peace deal. Trump himself has raised the prospect of elections, noting in a Feb. 18 press conference: “We have a situation where we haven’t had elections in Ukraine, where we have martial law.” The U.S. president went on to claim, incorrectly, that Zelenskyy’s approval rating was down to “4%.” The latest polling actually shows the Ukrainian president to be sitting on a 57% approval rating.
A day later, Trump upped the attacks, describing Zelenskyy as a “dictator without elections.”
Such statements echo Russia’s narrative that the government in Kyiv is illegitimate.
The Kremlin’s claims regarding what it describes as the “legal aspects related to his [Zelenskyy’s] legitimacy” are based on the premise that the Ukraine president’s five-year term as president of Ukraine should have ended in 2024.
And elections in Ukraine would have taken place in May of that year had it not been for the martial law that Ukraine put into place when the Russian Federation launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
The Martial Law Act – which Ukraine imposed on Feb. 24, 2022 – explicitly bans all elections in Ukraine for the duration of the emergency action.
And while the Ukrainian Constitution only includes language regarding the extension of parliament’s powers until martial law is lifted, constitutional lawyers in Ukraine tend to agree that the implication is that this also applies to presidential powers.
Notwithstanding what the law says, the Kremlin’s questioning of the democratic institutions of Ukraine and its push for elections in Ukraine have found traction in Washington of late. Trump’s special envoy Gen. Keith Kellogg declared on Feb. 1 that elections “need to be done” as part of peace process, saying that elections are a “beauty of a solid democracy.”
The ballot box trap
Zelenskyy is not opposed to elections in principle and has agreed that elections should be held when the time is right. “Once martial law is over, then the ball is in parliament’s court – the parliament then picks a date for elections,” Zelenskyy stated in a Jan. 2 interview.
And he appears to have the backing of the majority of Ukrainians. In May 2024, 69% of Ukrainians polled said Zelenskyy should remain president until the end of marshal law, after which elections should be held.
The issue, as Zelenskyy has said, is the timing and circumstances. “During the war, there can be no elections. It’s necessary to change legislation, the constitution, and so on. These are significant challenges. But there are also nonlegal, very human challenges,” he said on Jan. 4.
Even opposition politicians in Ukraine agree that now is not the time. Petro Poroshenko, Zelenskyy’s main political rival, has dismissed the idea of wartime elections, as has Inna Sovsun, the leader of the opposition Golos Party.
Apart from logistical problems of ensuring free and fair elections in the middle of a war, the conflict would present logistical hurdles to campaigning and accessing polling sites. There is also the question of whether and how to include Ukrainians in Russian-occupied territories and those who are internally displaced, as well as the 6.5 million who fled fighting and currently reside abroad.
Good elections … and bad
Russia did, of course, hold elections during the current conflict. But the 2024 election that Putin won with 87% of the vote was, according to most international observers, neither free nor fair.
Rather, it was a sham vote that only underlined what most political scientists will confirm: Elections are at best a necessary but insufficient marker of democracy.
This point is not wasted on Ukrainians, whose commitment to democracy strengthened in the years leading up to the 2022 invasion. Indeed, a survey taken a few months into the war found that 76% of Ukrainians agreed that democracy was the best form of governance – up from 41% three years earlier.
There are other reasons Ukraine might be wary of elections. The adversarial nature of political campaigns can be divisive, especially among a society in high stress.
Ukrainian politicians have openly argued that holding an election during the war would be destabilizing for Ukrainian society, undermining the internal unity in face of Russian aggression.
Outside influence
And then there is concern over outside influence in any election. Ukrainians have had enough experience with Russian meddling in their politics to take it for granted that the Kremlin will attempt to put a thumb on the scale.
Russia has since the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991 employed its substantial resources to influence Ukraine’s politics through all available means, ranging from propaganda, economic pressures and incentives to energy blackmail, threats and use of violence.
In 2004, Moscow’s electoral manipulations in favor of the pro-Russian candidate, Viktor Yanukovich, led to the Orange Revolution – in which Ukrainians rose up to reject rigged elections. Nine years later, Yanukovich – who became president in 2010 – was deposed though the Revolution of Dignity, which saw Ukrainians oust a man many saw as a Russian stooge in favor of a path toward greater integration with Europe.
Putin’s history of meddling in elections extends beyond Ukraine, of course. Most recently, the Romanian Constitutional Court annulled the country’s presidential elections, citing an electoral process compromised by foreign interference.
An impossible position
In raising elections as a prerequisite to negotiations, Putin is setting a
“catch-22” trap for Ukraine: The Ukrainian Constitution states that elections can happen only when martial law is lifted; but the lifting of the martial law is possible only when the “hot phase” of the war is over. So without a ceasefire, no election is possible.
But in refusing to agree to elections, Ukraine can be cast as the blockage to any peace deal – playing to a narrative that is already forming in the U.S. administration that Kyiv is the problem and will need to be sidelined for there to be progress.
In short, in seemingly echoing Russian talking points on an election being a prerequisite for peace, the U.S. puts the Ukrainian government in an impossible position: Agree to the vote and risk internal division and outside interference, or reject it and allow Moscow – and, perhaps, Washington – to frame Ukraine’s leaders as illegitimate and unable to negotiate on the behalf of their people.
Lena Surzhko Harned is Associate Teaching Professor of Political Science at Penn State.
Jack says
Early in 2016 while working for the Kasich campaign I came across Russian influence with the same group attacking Kasich, Rubio and Cruz and supporting Trump on FB months before it was reported by the media. I clicked on one of the posters pages where he had the communications on Public. After reading the communications it was obvious what the group was doing.
I did some research and found an audio of Trump saying he met with Putin in 2013 in Moscow when Trump held a beauty pageant there. Later on, in the campaign Trump denied meeting Putin many times.
There’s a Putin Trump relationship that has been bothering me ever since.
Bryan says
It is so obvious that Trump’s boss is Putin. He is destroying our democracy for Putin.
Shark says
Trump might have to get some new knee pads !!!!
Robjr says
I do not believe it is a trap.
Putin has laid down the agenda for his lap dog Trump to follow.
And Trump is lapping and following just as he did in his first term.
Jim says
I can’t say I’m surprised by Trump’s actions on Ukraine. I think Trump is fascinated by dictators and “strong men” and he sees Putin in that light. Also, I think he still blames Zelenskyy for all the blow back about Trump wanting Ukraine to open an investigation on Biden and his family during their election campaigns which didn’t happen. And, lastly, Trump doesn’t give a crap about Ukraine or Europe. He’s all in for Trump. His followers think he’s the “America First” guy but that’s not true. He’s out for Trump and everything he does can be tied back to what is good for him and his ego. He has sold out his political allies time after time when they either strayed from his path or got in a bind and he just casts them aside. The humorous part of that is that people continue to flock to him. Apparently, few Trumpers ever saw Charlie Brown, Lucy and the football….
I also can not understand how anyone can listen to Trump lie about Ukraine and Zelenskyy and accept that as normal. I think Zelenskyy is the absolute best statesman I’ve seen in my lifetime. When Russia attacked, he did not run which he could have easily done. He asked for ammunition; not a ride. And he has worked tirelessly since this war started in support of his people and country. There is not a single politician in this country that I would say the same. He deserves our respect and support. The fact that Trump is going to cut our ties with Ukraine and Europe speaks volumes about how low this country – the so-called “leader of the free world” has fallen.
And for those of you who say Trump is playing “four dimensional chess”, you’re as clueless and the idiot that thought that phrase up. Enjoy the show as prices go up, inflation balloons and the housing market crashes. Hail Trump!!
Pogo says
@And now
…the whole world sees putin and trump locked in a cell, together, in hell; with putin on top — where he’s always been.
https://www.google.com/search?q=ny+post+this+is+a+dictator
Thomas Hutson says
Putin Trap
There is NO Putin trap! The King made his intentions well known during the election. How soon voters forget the first term of the King when he met privately with Putin, no record of that meeting. Putin owns King Trump, why, is anybody’s guess. President Zelensky should take note from “Little Fat Man” who backed the King down. One should be asking how are you going to please Putin if Zelensky gives into your effort to take all of their minerals in exchange for continued protection. Sounds like another border wall fiasco, Mexico still has not paid a dime for that “Beautiful Wall”. America should be really, really proud of our new King, selling out our allies for Putin. Question for our new King, when are you going to give Putin all of the money and yachts back and lift the restrictions on Russia goods? The one thing our allies realize today is when you have “Friends Like America’s current King, You DON’T NEED Enemies”
Jackson says
Zelenskyy won HIS election by a REAL landslide. He had taken more than 73% with incumbent Petro Poroshenko trailing far behind at 24%. Ukrainian law states no elections in wartime. That’s their LAW. Ukraine did not start the war – they were invaded by Russia. Trump is fed propaganda by Putin and believes it because he has no idea what’s going on. Ukraine will not agree to any plans to end the war unless they are involved in the negotiations, obviously.
Laurel says
Trump lied about Ukraine starting the war, blatantly. He lied about Zelenskyy. If you still cannot see, open your ears.
Trump is getting revenge on the Ukrainians for not giving him information, correct or not, on Biden. Trump has believed, and supported, KGB agent, Soviet spy Putin over our own government. Trump stated this publicly to the American people. Trump has sucked up to this dictator of a man. Republican politicians have cowardly backed this treasonous behavior because they are afraid of standing up to Trump and losing their damned jobs; they are willing to destabilize the world. This happens simply because half the citizens of the U.S. support this undemocratic behavior.
If you continue this support, you are complicit. It’s on you. You can make a better difference and outcome by removing your support. I hope you will.
Sherry says
https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/21/politics/rich-mccormick-georgia-trump/index.html
Just take a gander at the passionate backlash against trump starting at a local city council meeting in Georgia. YES!
Dennis C Rathsam says
Have a great weekend, all the above ” HILLARY,S!!!! CRY, CRY, CRY, Its gonna be a long 4 years for all you liberals. This ain’t TRUMPS 1st rodeo, take a chill pill watch….Ya”LL might learn something about life!
Atwp says
Dennis it will be a long 4 years for you too.
Ray W, says
Curious about claims bandied about by Hegseth and Trump that America has spent $300 billion or more in aid to the Ukraine after Russia’s brutal and vicious invasion of the Ukraine, I looked for a fact checking site to check the figures.
A London-based fact checking organization that has achieved recognition by the British government as a non-political charitable organization, known as Full Fact, has delved into the issue of military, humanitarian and financial aid to the Ukraine.
I checked the site and found an article published earlier today.
Here are a few bullet points:
– Full Fact has yet to find any source that supports Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s February 13, 2025, statement that the U.S had committed “north of $300 billion” to “stabilizing the front lines” in Ukraine, nor could it find any source that supports President Trump’s X post two days ago that President Zelenskyy had “talked the United States of America into spending $350 million, to go into a war that couldn’t be won.”
– Relying on
Ray W, says
Curious about claims bandied about by Hegseth and Trump that America has spent $300 billion or more in aid to the Ukraine after Russia’s brutal and vicious invasion of the Ukraine, I looked for a fact checking site to check the figures.
A London-based fact checking organization that has achieved recognition by the British government as a non-political charitable organization, known as Full Fact, has delved into the issue of military, humanitarian and financial aid to the Ukraine.
I checked the site and found an article published earlier today.
Here are a few bullet points:
– Full Fact has yet to find any source that supports Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s February 13, 2025, statement that the U.S had committed “north of $300 billion” to “stabilizing the front lines” in Ukraine, nor could it find any source that supports President Trump’s X post two days ago that President Zelenskyy had “talked the United States of America into spending $350 million, to go into a war that couldn’t be won.”
– Relying on a German Research Institute named The Kiel Institute for the World Economy, which has been tracking international military, financial and humanitarian assistance to the Ukraine since 2022, Full Fact reports that total American and European aid to the Ukraine amounts to about $383 billion, with the US contributing about one-third of the total, or about $119.5 billion, with another $5.1 billion committed but not yet allocated. Of the $119.5 total, $67 billion was for military assistance.
– A January 2025 report by the U.S. State Department has the total American military aid to Ukraine at $65.9 billion.
– Congressional legislation has total aid of all kinds to the Ukraine at $175 billion since 2022, but $106 billion of that total directly aids the Ukrainian government. “Most of the remainder is funding various US activities associated with the war, plus a small portion supporting other affected countries.
– According to the U.S. inspector general responsible for Ukraine aid oversight some $183 billion was made available between February 2022 and December 2024, but that figure includes money spent in the U.S. and in other countries aside from the Ukraine.
– Between 2014 and October 2021, the Ukraine received $2.5 billion in military or security assistance, plus another $350 million in humanitarian aid, according to the State Department.
– In 2021, the Congressional Research Service reported that since 2014, American bilateral aid averaged $418 million per year.
Make of this what you will.
Me?
If all of this is true, I have no idea where the “north of” $300 billion figure Hegseth stated came from, nor can Trump’s $350 billion figure be explained; it is if numbers were snatched out of thin air. But the lack of an explanation does not change the fact that there are no records available to support the claims.
As an aside, I have been commenting in the past several days that the Ukraine has already won the war. Only the killing remains before Russia is forced to concede the loss. As foundation for my comments, I quoted from a speech to the American people Churchill gave on the invitation of the House in May 1943. At the time, victory over Germany was two years away and Japan’s capitulation was 27 months away. Churchill told our ancestors that Germany, Italy, and the Empire of Japan were already finished, they just didn’t know it yet. All three enemy nations had had serious defeats thrust upon them. Churchill said that it was not the time to give up or to give in. Millions more would have to die, but that would not change the outcome.
I will repeatedly argue that Russia expected an easy victory. It invaded and the tank columns reached the outskirts of Kiev before they were halted. Early in the war, Russia held as much as 26% of Ukrainian territory. But the Ukrainians counterattacked and drove Russian forces out of much of the captured land. Russian held territory dropped to under 17% of the total Ukrainian land mass.
In the following two years, Russia gained little, now holding some 18% of Ukrainian soil.
But Ukraine now holds two bridgeheads into Russia. The first assault in the Kursk region began in early August 2024. Putin promised his people it would be erased by October 1st. Ukrainian forces are still there. Yes, Russian and North Korean soldiers have recaptured some of the salient, but Ukrainian forces assaulted the second Russian region, which they still hold.
Russia has lost the war. Once considered the strongest military force in Europe, the tiny Ukrainian army not only forced them to a standstill, but it then repelled them. Russian forces have tried for the last year to seize Pokrovsk, without success. 2024 was the bloodiest year for the Russian army and it captured about 1% of the Ukraine. October saw the heaviest loss of Russian military equipment since the first few months of the war. A third of the Black Sea fleet sits on the seafloor. Russia’s economy is in shambles. Again, using Churchill’s language, only the killing remains.
No wonder the exultation from Russian leaders when Trump entered the fray. They exultated at Trump’s lies about Zelenskyy having a 4% approval rating. They ecstatically screamed at Trump’s lies that Zelenskyy was an unelected dictator. They quivered with joy at Trump’s lies that Zelenskyy had started the war.
As a second aside, earlier today President Trump walked back his claim that the Ukraine had started the war. Today, he said that Russia had attacked, but he added that the Ukraine should not have let Russia attack them. No doubt Russian leadership will backflip in wonder at Trump’s new lies.
Just another day in the Great Russian Appeasement of 2025.
Pogo says
@Ray W
Maybe hegseth was confusing his bar tab, tattoo parlor, plastic surgery, and divorce costs with those of the war.
Laurel says
Ray W: And what’s so hard to fathom is the Republicans never trusted Putin and Russia until Trump came along. They were adamantly against the Russians. John McCain was very vocal against Russia, and Trump was very vocal against John McCain in favor of Putin. Trump also favors North Korea. The American people are being duped by Trump and his sycophants. Sad time for our country.
YankeeExPat says
You are correct Dennis, Trump is a Rodeo Clown
JW says
We tend to have a short memory.
Yes, it was and still is Putin’s war. But, the US is not an innocent bystander. We are interested in dominating the world and worked on expanding NATO eastward trying the encircle Russia. When we added the Baltic States and recently Finland, the Russians have said Nyet, Nyet, Nyet. But we did not know what that means. (Thomas Friedman did some good reporting on that)
George says
Why isn’t Congress protecting the USA and its people. When the Constitution of the US is being broken no matter who it is, Congress and the Supreme Court need to do their jobs and if not resign.
They are failing our country and history books are not going to be kind.
Sherry says
I agree completely. . . trump did not fall into putin’s trap. Ole’ donald is doing precisely what he said he would do. He promised he would take a wrecking ball to our entire Federal Government. By completely destroying our government, that “Convicted Felon” you Magas elected has handed our country over elon, and to Russia and China!
Let me ask you this. . . How is the price of eggs and gasoline now? Was it worth giving up our democracy? Our place as respected world leaders? Our Moral Beliefs? Our Privacy? The Protection of Our Private IDs? Our promises to those who have been cruelly “FIRED” for “NO Reason”? Our promises to those in need after natural disasters, if they don’t knee down to trump?
Promises made. . . and promises kept, right? When are you going to wake up from your cult stupor and help us get rid of trump and his minions? When are you going to stand up for what is “right”? When are you going to help us save our beloved country?
Laurel says
I’ll tell you when, Sherry. When they are affected personally. Musk is indiscriminate when it comes to firing American workers. These “cuts” are gutting Democrats and Republicans alike. The “jobs! jobs!, jobs!” was a bullshit chant, and it worked…at the time. Well, the time is now, and Americans are losing their jobs. They are losing their rights. They are losing their freedoms. They are losing their privacy.
There will continue to be denial, until it hits home. When they can no longer blame Biden, or immigrants. I think it has already begun.
don miller says
i have never heard reasonable explanation from dems concerning putin taking crimea and ukraine from a Dem administration and never anything under trump. Why, if trump is the putin puppet?