DISINFO: All Ukrainian governments since 2014 have been illegitimate
SUMMARY
Ukraine has not had a legitimate government or president since the 2014 Maidan coup. De jure President Zelensky no longer the legitimate president. While Zelensky’s five-year term as Ukraine’s president ended on May 20, he opted not to hold a presidential election, citing martial law imposed due to the conflict with Russia.
RESPONSE
Recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narratives targeting Ukraine’s leadership and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and portraying the Maidan protests as a coup.
There was no coup d’état in Ukraine in 2014; this is a longstanding pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about Ukraine's Euromaidan protests. The spontaneous onset of these protests was an organic reaction by numerous parts of the Ukrainian population to former President Yanukovych’s sudden departure from the promised Association Agreement with the European Union in November 2013. Fatigue from corruption, pressure on business, voluntary or forced closures, dissatisfaction with the government's economic policy - for many Euromaidan participants, these reasons also became motives for joining the protests. See the full debunk of this disinformation claim here.
Ukraine’s constitution is straightforward: no elections can be held during wartime and the President of Ukraine exercises his powers until the assumption of office by the newly-elected President. The continuity of government institutions is one of the key principles of the Constitution.
While the date 20 May 2024, five years after President Zelenskyy took office, has given rise to some domestic controversy in Ukraine, almost all observers consider regular elections unfeasible as there are millions of refugees abroad, hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians serving on the frontlines and a significant part of Ukrainian population lives under Russian occupation. There are also multiple funding and infrastructure problems that can hardly be addressed while the war is ongoing.
See other examples of similar disinformation narratives, such as claims that Zelenskyy is illegitimate and therefore Russia is directly fighting the West, that the prolonged war allows Zelenskyy and his junta to maintain their positions of power, that Zelenskyy and the Kyiv junta need to continue the war against Russia to enrich themselves with Western aid, or that Zelenskyy staged a coup d'état for fear of losing the 2024 presidential elections.