President Zelensky is the legitimate

President of Ukraine. For Sergei Lavrov to suggest otherwise and use it as an excuse to continue the war is to say "Russia does not want the war to cease until we have what we want". 

I think we all know that. Zelensky is legitimate because the Ukrainian constitution expressly forbids elections during war time - and Ukraine is under invasion. It is a war zone. Perhaps Lavrov thinks otherwise because his President still calls it a "special military operation".  It is nothing of the sort of course. It is an illegitimate attempt to cease territory which does not belong to Russia.

What makes all this even more interesting is that the Russian government is not a legitimate government. Under their Constitution a President can only have two terms in power. Putin has been there for six terms (sixteen years) so far and shows no signs of relinquishing the role. He was Prime minister too and the Director of the Federal Security Bureau before that.  

 Putin had "elections" held in the annexed territories and those "elected" sit in the Duma. These so-called elections were illegal under both international law and under the Russian Constitution in which international law takes priority over state law. This effectively means that the entire Russian government is illegal - and yet they are trying to say the elected President of Ukraine is illegal?

 Putin has had elections rigged, banned opponents from standing (and imprisoned them) and murdered dissidents. He has taken children from their families and had them "adopted" into Russian homes. He is using prisoners as front line "soldiers" knowing they will not survive but giving them the false promise they will come back as free men. 

We criticise the Prime Minister of Israel - and rightly so. Netanyahu is to be condemned but is he really any worse than Putin? The situation in Gaza is immensely complex and the reporting is - let's just say "biased".  Despite that we have hundreds or thousands of people "protesting" against his policies when there is no more than a whisper about Ukraine. 

There is something very wrong here. I can only imagine that, when the war is over, Zelensky will be relieved to hand over his role to someone else.