Kremlin says a 2022 Ukrainian law bans Zelenskyy from talks with Putin

A Ukrainian serviceman sits in a shelter on his position at the frontline near Donetsk, Ukraine, Monday, March 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Roman Chop)

Russia on Wednesday asked how Ukraine could attend potential talks on ending their three-year war when a Ukrainian decree from 2022 rules out negotiations with President Vladimir Putin.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy “is still legally prohibited from negotiating with the Russian side,” Dmitry Peskov noted during a daily call with reporters.

Zelenskyy expressed readiness Tuesday to negotiate peace with Russia as soon as possible, and Peskov called that “positive.” However, “the details have not changed yet,” the Russian spokesman added, apparently referring to the decree.

Ukraine’s government did not immediately comment.

Neither Ukrainian nor Western officials have mentioned the presidential decree, signed seven months after Russia’s full-scale invasion, in the context of U.S. President Donald Trump’s latest efforts to stop the fighting in a war of attrition that has killed tens of thousands of soldiers and over 12,000 Ukrainian civilians.

The United States seeks to pressure Zelenskyy into negotiating an end to the war. The Trump administration on Monday suspended its crucial military aid to Ukraine.

On Wednesday, U.S. officials said Washington has also paused intelligence sharing with Kyiv. However, Trump administration officials said that positive talks between Washington and Kyiv mean the suspension may not last long.

In the war’s early months, 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 Kremlin at the time said it would wait for Ukraine to sit down for talks on ending the conflict, noting it may not happen until a new Ukrainian president took office.

Ukrainian forces are now toiling to slow advances by the bigger Russian army along the 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) front line, especially in the eastern Donetsk region. The Russian onslaught, costly for its troops, hasn’t brought a strategically significant breakthrough for the Kremlin.

As European leaders scramble to adapt to the sharply changing U.S. position on Ukraine under Trump, the French government on Wednesday said Zelenskyy, French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer could travel together to Washington “eventually.”

Spokesperson Sophie Primas did not elaborate. Macron’s office later said no trip to Washington was being planned. The reason for the discrepancy between the statements was not immediately clear.

The three leaders traveled separately to Washington last week for meetings with Trump. Zelenskyy’s turned into the extraordinary scene of an open dispute with Trump in the Oval Office.

The U.K.‘s Starmer didn’t comment on the possibility of a joint trip when he appeared in Parliament on Wednesday. His spokesman, Dave Pares, would not confirm such a trip.

Meanwhile, a Russian court on Wednesday convicted and sentenced a British national captured last year while 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, the 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.