Zelensky reveals he was given Kremlin ‘ultimatum’ to step down in favour of pro-Russian politician

During the initial days of the war, Moscow issued Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky with an ultimatum demanding that he stand down in favour of disgraced pro-Kremlin politician Viktor Medvedchuk as Ukraine’s president, Zelensky claimed during an event at the World Economic Forum in the Swiss town of Davos on Wednesday.

“Some people from Ukraine” came to him shortly after the invasion began on 24 February 2022, Zelensky said, to deliver a message from Vladimir Putin. “They told me I should step down, that they would replace me with the pro-Russian Medvedchuk, and I’d no longer be president,” he continued.

Russia also demanded that Kyiv relinquish control over Donbas, reduce its troop numbers to 50,000, enshrine its neutrality in a re-written constitution, give up most of its long-range weapons, and make a commitment not to join NATO, Zelensky said.

The same demands had also been made by Russia at the unsuccessful peace talks held in Istanbul between February and April 2022, Zelensky continued, while stressing that “there were no talks” in Istanbul, only “an ultimatum from a murderer”.

A key Kremlin ally who claims to be close to Vladimir Putin, Viktor Medvedchuk headed the pro-Kremlin party Opposition Platform — For Life until it was outlawed in Ukraine shortly after the full-scale Russian invasion.

Medvedchuk, who was under house arrest in Kyiv pending treason charges when the Russian invasion began, was caught attempting to flee the country by the Security Service of Ukraine in April 2022. He was eventually swapped in a prisoner exchange with Russia later that year, however.

Putin has referred to what he termed the Istanbul Accords several times in his public statements, saying in December that a deal with Ukraine had “nearly” been reached in Istanbul in 2022, but that it had ultimately fallen apart after former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson urged Kyiv to fight “to the last Ukrainian”, a claim disputed by Zelensky, who has said that the accords simply “never existed”.