where do the theories come from about the alleged no. the legitimacy of president zelensky, did his presidential term end on may 20 after exactly 5 years, how long has he been in office, in short, no, but we talk about it in detail on the bbc broadcast live from london, i'm yevgenia shedlovska. on may 20, 2019, former comedian and showman volodymyr zelensky became the president of ukraine after winning the election with record support, and this is the moment, the inauguration of zelensky. then the first thing he did was dissolve. supreme council,

therefore, early parliamentary elections were held in ukraine soon. zelensky's servant of the people party entered the council, and a monomajority appeared there. fast-forward five years, a lot has changed, a full-scale war is going on, and this is how president zelensky evaluates his 5 years in office. my 5 years haven't ended yet, because of the martial law, they are continuing, i can't estimate. its activity, it seems to me that it is simply not very ethical. since the president has changed during this time, it is clear what the challenges of war are and the whole country had business. but when zelensky says that his five years of presidency are not over. even earlier , there were theories that it allegedly loses its legitimacy after may 20. first of all, it was talked about in russia, where similar theses have been promoted since march. there was a sharp statement by the representative of russia at the un that...

zelenskyi said that without elections, he will be illegitimate from may 21, however, then russian rhetoric changed somewhat, for example, this statement by putin during his visit to china, they say, should give an assessment of zelenskyi's legitimacy political system of ukraine. a week passed , putin came to minsk and what he said there, i quote: zelensky's legitimacy has ended, the question, they say, with whom russia will be able to negotiate, but at the same time, putin repeated that it should be determined in ukraine, the parliament, the constitutional court. but also in ukraine, some opponents. zelensky talked about the problem with the presidential term. in particular, former associate of zelenskyi and former speaker of the parliament, now deputy dmytro razumko, confirmed that after may 20 the president should hand over powers to the incumbent speaker of the verkhovna rada ruslan stefanchuk. and in general, in razumkov's opinion , the constitutional court should put an end to the debate about the presidential term. in addition to razumkov, there were other opponents of zelensky who voiced similar theses. my colleague svyatoslav khomenko explained in detail where they appear from. contradictions

regarding the duration of the president's mandate. the essence of the problem lies in the conflict between several articles of the constitution. on the one hand , the constitution states that the presidential term is five years. that is, if the inauguration of volodymyr zelenskyi took place on may 20, 2019, so his term should have ended on may 20, 2024. on the other hand, the same constitution states that the president is in office until the next head of state is elected and takes office. but as we know, there were no elections in ukraine, so no next head of state was elected, and therefore zelenskyi simply has no one to transfer powers to, and then supporters of the theory of zelenskyi’s illegitimacy turn to the question, how does the constitution deal with so that the state does not hold presidential elections, and here it turns out that the basic law contains a ban on holding elections to the verkhovna rada during martial law, but does not say anything on this topic regarding presidential elections, and this is enough for certain people,

both in ukraine and beyond its borders, to claim that may 20, 2024 was the last day of volodymyr zelenskyi's powers, after that date he should leave the presidential office. the majority of ukrainian politicians and lawyers, serious lawyers, consider this interpretation of the constitution manipulation they say that this interpretation of the provisions of the basic law contradicts the principle of continuity of state power. they say that there were presidents in ukraine who were in office for more than five years, for example, leonid kuchna's second term as president was supposed to end at the end of 2004, but as we remember, that was when the first maidan was taking place. behind him is the third round of the presidential elections, that's all, in a word, he was in office for 5 years and 2 months, and then it did not bother anyone at all, no one called leonid kuchma illegitimate president, in addition, these politicians and lawyers, who are convinced of the legitimacy of volodymyr zelenskyi, draw attention to the fact that the law of ukraine on... the legal regime of martial law expressly

prohibits holding referendums and any parliamentary elections during martial law , presidential, local. actually, volodymyr zelenskyi himself and his entourage say that all the talk about the alleged illegitimacy. the ukrainian president's identity is a russian ipso within the framework of a big plan called maidan 3, and ukrainian intelligence is called this klan maidan 3 is the largest informational special operation of the russian special services in history. however, judging by everything, ukrainian society is very weakly concerned with these narratives, and the prospects of mass protests in ukraine due to the alleged illegitimacy of volodymyr zelensky seem, to put it mildly, illusory. my colleague svyatoslav khomenko generally researched this topic, and you can read his article on our website bbc.ua, the problem of 5 years, is there any threat to the legitimacy of zelensky after may 20, such is the title. well, minister of justice, denis malyuska says that president zelensky

does not lose his legitimacy after may 20, and the government official explains the contradictions of constitutional norms as follows: the authors of the basic law did not take into account the real possibility of a major war with the minister of justice. my colleague oleg chernysh communicated earlier. in your opinion, these are the shortcomings of the ukrainian constitution, which does not cover these issues very unambiguously. no, if you read it correctly, everything is quite clear, and that is, the powers of the president continue until the election of the next one. but, well, many, many norms of the constitution are formulated in this way, that the one who wants to find something to complain about or on which to build some theory about language, he will find it. the spillage refers to those things that the authors and drafters of the constitution did not consider as realistic. well, then the question arises, maybe it is more appropriate to turn to the body that interprets the constitution, to the constitutional court, so that it puts an end to this issue, don't you think so?

to be honest, it's definitely beyond my authority, i'm not an entity that can appeal to the constitutional court, moreover , it's probably a bit late now to do, because... what exactly is this appeal, it means that there are questions, there are doubts, they are well-founded, and we need the authority of the constitutional court, which would settle this situation, taking into account the communication and security situation in the country, now a- and to officially and publicly question the legitimacy of the president, it was a huge mistake, so i think that now there is no point in turning to the constitutional court, when... somewhere it was possible, but again, not at this stage, well, to fix since may 21, all decrees, documents of the president, they are absolutely there in force, as and as now, clearly, clearly, no president has ever worked day in and day out, as defined by

the constitution, this applies to the parliament as well, this is precisely, by the way, one of the shortcomings of the constitution, they provide for a term of office, whether of the verkhovna rada, or the ... dent, the question is, in fact, what does this norm mean, well, that is, what is the point of regulating the term of office, if there is a norm that regulates the date of elections, and there is a norm that indicates that whether the parliament , or the president, they work until a replacement is elected, and this rule is about a term powers, it has never been directly applied, it is... only as a certain guideline, which should be interpreted and applied in connection with the norms that determine the date of elections. by the way, you may have heard that the supreme court has already opened proceedings on a citizen's lawsuit, that is, on the issue of not appointing presidential elections to the verkhovna

rada, that is, it simply obliges the parliament to appoint presidential elections, what are your predictions, this lawsuit has any chance of being, i again, i don't want to replace the role of the court, but... practically no arguments for if this does not happen, it would be a violation of the constitution, the election code and the law on the legal regime of martial law, so i do not see any prospects. one of the authors of the constitution, roman bezsmertnyi, says: "the basic law clearly states that zelenskyy must remain in the presidential post until his successor is elected in legitimate elections. moreover, the constitution prohibits the current president from transferring his powers." another question is whether elections are possible in ukraine now? under other conditions, regular presidential and parliamentary elections should take place this year. ukraine has been under martial law since the beginning of the full-scale russian invasion, and the martial law law prohibits holding any elections or

referendums or changing the constitution under such conditions. in general, democratic elections and martial law are concepts that contradict each other, says olga evazovska, head of the board of the opor civic network. it is impossible to organize free and fair elections in the conditions of the challenge of full-scale aggression, according to the question of the legitimacy of the newly elected government can be much higher. than to the extension of the current term, either of the parliament or of the local self-government bodies, although according to the constitution they were supposed to move in the 25th year, or directly of the president, the parliamentarians, both the government and the opposition agreed on the formula recorded in the memorandum, in november 2023, is that the election is not held under the legal regime of martial law, when it can be lifted, then it can be held. the electoral process and the window for its implementation after this legal fact will be six months. second,

it is not possible to hold elections in a different way than according to the legislation and formulas defined in the election code today. the question of the legitimacy of power is a law and acceptance, that is, it is a political plane. do the people of ukraine question the legitimacy of the ukrainian government, i mean the branches of the verkhovna rada, the president, and. potentially of the government and local self-government bodies, no, all sociology testifies to a significant level of legitimacy and a significant level of resistance to the idea of ​​holding elections in the heat of war, who questions the legitimacy, it rather, those who play with the issue of ukrainian statehood, or, unfortunately, it is the russian federation, which is still very influential in europe as the party that shapes the narratives. and in the united states and in other countries, the question of holding or not holding elections today is in the interests of only

the russian federation, ukrainian society recognizes its government, elected in the 19th year in fair, democratic, recognized by all elections, on the other hand, the russian federation does not have much decade of political, not a single full-fledged electoral process that has signs of democracy, and certainly the russian federation should not dictate rules or formulas to us. or the standards of conducting elections, so may 20 was rather a day that marked five years of zelenskyi's presidency, and not called into question his powers, so observers say, so it is an opportunity for us to record this moment and talk about how zelenskyi changed to position a novice in politics became the country's leader in the war at the most difficult time of ukrainian independence, and yet his presidency is divided by one date: until february 24, 2022. and after of course, during these five years, zelenskyi changed, he gained experience, he made

noise. his presidency has seen several extremely serious crises that could actually unseat any politician, even one with much more experience than zelenskyy had in 2019. zelenskyi's first such political test was probably his role in the first attempt to impeach donald trump. then the ukrainian authorities managed to screw things up, but on relations. this story had an extremely destructive effect on the usa, ukraine for some time was even considered a toxic topic in the washington political corridors. the second big crisis for zelensky is the coronavirus. quarantine in ukraine was announced just a few weeks after zelensky ended his first period of political romanticism. he dismissed prime minister oleksiy honcharuk, drove around the building of the cabinet of ministers on an electric scooter. around the same time , andriy bohdan resigned, and he was replaced by the now all-powerful andriy yarmak. and those months of quarantine just as convincingly proved to zelensky that he can lead

the country, dealing with communication crises, korean vaccines, oxygen concentrators, this is not such an exciting thing as it might have seemed to him from the scenes of the series "servant of the people". and finally a full-scale invasion. sometime in the future , the preparation of the ukrainian authorities for this full-scale invasion will probably be devoted to... formed a coalition of civilized states around itself, which is still holding and thanks to the help from which ukraine continues to defend itself from the russian invasion. of course, now zelensky is dealing with completely different challenges than he did 5 years ago, now in... a completely different president than 5 years ago, and he continues to change along with the country. well, that concludes it,

next time, watch our broadcast on monday, all the best. hello friends, this is the verdict program, the second part of our program, and today we are let's talk with you about this. formula for sustainable peace. macron admits that putin is not ready to end the war. why are western partners delaying a decision on the future of russia and its dictator? delegitimization of the ukrainian government. the kremlin continues special information operations to open the domestic

front. what can split ukrainian society? 5 years for at the helm of the state, the anniversary of zelenskyi's presidency passed without pathos, why is the president in no hurry to report on his achievements during the first term. that's all, to be continued for the next 45 minutes, we will talk on the air with my colleagues, journalists olga musafirova. i congratulate you, olga. and kateryna nekrechev. i congratulate you, katerina. thank you for joining our conversation. greetings, colleagues, greetings to the audience. er, i will remind our viewers that we are working live on the tv channel and we are conducting a survey today, today we are asking you about whether ukraine should cooperate with the russian opposition, yes, no, everything is quite simple on youtube, either yes or no, if you have your own opinion, a separate opinion, please write it in the comments below with this video, if you are sitting in front of the tv and have a smartphone or phone at hand, vote by numbers if you think

that ukraine should cooperate with the russian opposition (0800-211-381). no. 0800 211 382, ​​all calls to these numbers are free, vote, at the end of the program we will tally up the results of this vote, and we will start our conversation, a big conversation today, with my colleagues, journalists, olya , what do you think, is it worth cooperating in ukraine from the russian position, and if so worth it, then what should we talk about with her and... and how should we cooperate? sergey, you know, i don’t have a clear answer, uh, brother, i answered a question with a question: uh, is there a systemic opposition in russia with which you can cooperate, and then where is this opposition

located, inside russia, outside russia, we are... in principle, realists, and to cooperate simply in order to maintain good relations, well , it seems to me that this is not our method, we have to proceed from some pragmatic things, we need the russian russian opposition in order to in order for democratic elections to take place in russia, democratic elections cannot take place in the empire. the empire must be dismantled, well, this is such a program at the very, very maximum, and the population of the empire must go a long enough way so that it can actually walk, participate in elections, the opposition must train the population, the russian

opposition must train the population of russia after as vla... putin will be removed from power, the country, if it remains the same within the same limits as now, it will be, as we say, under - the protectorate of the free world, so far these are, forgive me, far distant plans, i would rather talk about something more substantive than... about cooperation with the russian opposition, thank you ul, kateryna, what do you think, should ukraine cooperate with the russian opposition, because our viewers are also probably thinking now, when they vote or decide how to vote, yes or no, what do you say? i see that now the majority of voices on youtube are against this, they think that it is not necessary, but

in principle they seem logical arguments to me and ukrainian representatives there. who obviously supported and gave permission for russian citizens to enter there, for example, on the territory of ukraine, and the arguments of yeli ponomarov, i saw that he was on the air, sergey, and this morning i spoke with him on the air, that is, the arguments that there are democratic elections in russia and that there is an active opposition that could compete with the russian regime, obviously there are no such prospects and in the near future there are no such prospects. however, there is a representation of the russian opposition in the world. the most famous person at the moment, and this was recognized by time magazine, yes, where she entered the top there, so. of the most famous people, this is yulia navalny, the reasons for this seem to be obvious, but imagine, hypothetically, it is impossible there, it did not happen, but if such a famous

person from the russian opposition declared that ukraine must be supported with weapons, a military victory is needed, and a victory by military means it is impossible to come to an agreement with putin, and would then, for example, the biden administration, for a long time, doubt or argue about whether to give ukraine permission to strike to the west with what weapons on the territory of russia, on military facilities in the territory of the russian federation, well, then it would probably be more difficult to hesitate in the white house, and ilya ponomarov notes that the russian opposition, it is so different, you are the one who managed to unite around the very question is that ukraine must win by military means, that is, something serious must happen on the battlefield in order to further move this process towards the end of the war, and such people... they gathered representatives of the russian position, there yulia navalna and vbc, they are against such a thing, and they are also in favor of speaking there, that is why, as ponomarov noted, there are immediately differences of opinion, and

well, that is, for the world there is, perhaps not one russian opposition is united, but there are bright representatives of this of the russian opposition, some of them were here in lviv or near lviv, and this is also an argument and indicator, russian citizens who are fighting. on the side of ukraine - this is also a serious argument, that is, it is better if these arguments were definitely for ukraine, or if they were completely absent, in my opinion, well, in relation to yulia navalny, it is very doubtful to call her an oppositionist at all, she is the wife of an oppositionist who was killed by putin in prison, well , it would be possible to put an end to it here, because yulia navalny is not engaged in any opposition activities now, well, at least she is not for the world. for the world, she is. she does not declare that she wants to be the president of the russian federation, or that she wants the overthrow of the putin regime, that is, she does not openly talk about it, she is the wife of

alexei navalny and everyone perceives her as as a part of the possible opposition, but those who are called the opposition or whatever, how they position themselves, really gathered in lviv at the forum of the russian opposition, there was an adviser to the office of the president of ukraine, mykhailo podalyak. who said that putin's regime in russia can be overthrown only after ukraine wins the war. let's listen to what podalyak said. there is a tsar, he has the surname putin, then there will be the next tsar, and so on and so forth. unless there is a rupture on the battlefield. now the rate is very clear. now they're stuck have completely abandoned the disguise, and now, for anything positive to happen, they must lose the war, only the war. everything else is an illusion, agreements are impossible, russia will not follow the rules, it will not be able to become law-abiding. the only option is once again a tactical defeat on one or another

part of the front, not on the entire front, on one or another part of the front. that is, olya, i understand that podalyak admitted that the russian opposition will do nothing, that only a military defeat can lead to the collapse of the putin regime, and this military defeat, which will cause ukraine. and the ukrainians will inflict this defeat, will inflict this defeat, will open the door for the russian oppositionists, although ilya panomarov, who was literally half an hour ago here in the studio, said that they are ready to go to moscow, they have russian volunteer battalions and fighters who are ready to fight on the territory of russia for power, i asked him to name at least the approximate number of people there, he said three or four battalions. and said they have 10,000 partisans all over russia who work for the side, or say, in favor of ukraine. why

was this forum in ukraine for the russian opposition, what does it give ukraine first of all, i'm not saying what it gives the russian opposition, what, what, what do we get from it? thank you, serhiy, i would have asked the same question, well, since we are ukrainian-centric. and citizens of ukraine, then we must first of all proceed from our own interests, and not from the interests of the russian opposition. it is beneficial for us to deal with people who call themselves the russian opposition, although i have already said that this is a fairly theoretical structure, i.e. russian opposition, well, like any opposition. it is motley, it does not get along with itself, but again , this is not our business. so, here i would like to immediately, you know, how

to shout in the theater, and... the author, who was the author of this, forgive me, i will call it the political attraction of this event, if gur, well, since mr. budanov supported and responded favorably about this story, i am a little sad, because it seemed to me, as a civilian, at least that... special services have slightly different powers and goals, and if this is true , this measure was conceived with the help of of the main intelligence agency, then he, again, in my opinion, a civilian, should have passed so secretly that

none of us... knew about it, especially since we did not talk about it live and did not discuss it, because these are important questions, yes , he came quietly, he left quietly, about the partisans on the territory of russia - great, about the plans of the rdk, great, the rdk does not shine much light on its soldiers and commanders, and i understand why and that is right, people are fighting, they have families, friends, social connections, nobody... this remained in russia publicity is not needed, that is, they are going against the imperial monster, and what we see, we see photos of the scene, where the representatives stand, where its banner hangs, the forum of the russian opposition, and well, this is a very, i would say, such a secular political event , what is the opposition going to do at all?

well, any opposition is gathering to discuss the issue of how we, the opposition, will come to power in russia, well , i have no other options, if this event is secret, i saw in some publications that a secret event took place in lviv of the russian opposition, no, not secret, we are very publicized... we talk about him all day today, well, then i don't understand anything at all, and i don't even understand the fundamental questions, how many of those representatives of the opposition who came to lviv are citizens of the russian federation, usually people who live outside russia, they have another

citizenship, they are already british citizens. whatever, that is, they cannot enter the territory of russia, especially if people came from the territory of russia with russian passports to ukraine, here they were named and shown on stage, why did these people do it, they a priori then cannot engage in any partisan or other work, that is, work that would be interesting to us, ukrainians, during the war. and they will be engaged in political activities, well , please, but this is such a long-standing process that, well, i see no point in discussing it now, who will be the next president of russia, which party will win, there is no

such thing, well, ilya ponomarov . who was on my air, he said that they were considering the issue of possibly creating some kind of government, which is either exiled or of an alternative government, and it seems that they have already agreed on something there, started working in this direction, or at least formed some working groups there. katerina, do you believe in the russian opposition? oh, it's not a matter of faith, it's a matter of facts and what we have now, of course it would be good for... the country if it were so, but we understand what path vladimir putin and his entourage took in order for this there was no opposition at all, there was no nimtsov, khodorkovsky spent 10 years, by the way, let’s not forget, in a russian prison, and that’s it he has now come to lviv, there is a difficult history, his own path, but now we have what we have, as the classic said, but here i would like to draw attention to the fact that the forum was as if it was secret, such

pr is good for him... he became the city of lviv the gardener who read...