Will peace pass the abandonment of the Ukrainian territories to Russia? This is in any case what Russia continues Vladimir Putin, three days after its summit with Donald Trump and, although a series of crucial meetings are celebrated this Monday, August 18 in Washington, among the US president, his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky and several European leaders.
“What is very important is that all sensitive and territorial questions (…) are discussed in a trilateral meeting,” said Ukrainian president at a meeting about Donald Trump and European leaders.
According to several sources in Reuters and AFP, Moscow would demand a deviation from the Ukrainian troops from the areas of Oblast Donetk that still control, so that the Russian army, which already occupies the Oblast of Lougansk, has the entire Donbass region. In return, Russia would agree to freeze the first line in another part of the country.
An official in case of telephone exchanges on Saturday, between Donald Trump and European leaders told AFP that the US president had put himself behind the Russian proposal. Officially, the Republican billionaire defends an “exchange of territories”, without further details. On the other hand, he publicly states that Ukraine definitely renounces Crimea, occupied since 2014 by Russia.
“It is against our Constitution”
Volodymyr Zelensky, he doesn’t listen to him like that. The president of Ukraine does not withdraw his troops from the DonBass and will not make territorial concessions, citing in particular the Ukrainian Constitution.
“The answer to the Ukrainian territorial question is already in the Constitution of Ukraine. No one will get rid of it, and no one can do it. The Ukrainians will not renounce their land to the occupant,” he wrote in X on August 9.
Last April, when the US president has already summoned him to leave Crimea, Volodymyr Zelensky replied: “There is nothing to discuss. It is against our Constitution. It is our territory.”
“The territory of Ukraine is indivisible and inviolable”
Ratified in 1996, the Ukrainian Fundamental Law is really unequivocal in the issue. Its article 2 states: “The sovereignty of Ukraine extends throughout its territory. Ukraine is a unitary state. The territory of Ukraine, on its current borders, is indivisible and inviolable.”
Selling a territory to Russia, therefore, it would be necessary to change the Constitution, a right that returns “exclusively to people” according to its article 5. But another legal obstacle would remain. In fact, article 157 of the Constitution prohibits any modification of the text that aims to “eliminate independence or violate the territorial indivisibility of Ukraine.”
In addition, this same article 157 adds that “the Constitution of Ukraine cannot be modified in the case of martial law”, which is the case today.
If the Constitution makes it impossible to sell territories to the enemy, the Ukrainian legislation had to adapt to the invasion of its territories by Russia. In 2014, after the annexation of Crimea, the Parliament voted a law that reaffirms that the Peninsula is “an integral part of Ukraine and only” temporarily occupied. “The text has been updated several times. He judges the various referendums of the annexation held in the Oblasters of Ukraine invaded in 2022 and broader, all decisions taken by the authorities made by the authorities.
It is likely that these legal barriers bother Donald Trump, who had already been said last week “that (Volodymyr) Zelensky says” I must have a constitutional authorization. “Before his meeting this Monday, August 18 in Washington, on Monday, August 18, the head of state of the United States exerted maximum pressure on his Ukrainian counterpart, who, according to him, he has two options:” Russia almost immediately “or” continue fighting. “
Source: BFM TV
