{"id":187192,"date":"2019-04-22T08:03:39","date_gmt":"2019-04-22T08:03:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=187192"},"modified":"2022-03-01T16:45:08","modified_gmt":"2022-03-01T16:45:08","slug":"putin-refuses-to-congratulate-new-ukraine-president-volodymyr-zelensky","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=187192","title":{"rendered":"Putin refuses to congratulate new Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oliver Carroll \u2013 The Independent April 22, 2019<\/h1>\n
\"\"<\/a>

Former comedian and now Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky. Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n

Vladimir Putin has refused to congratulate Ukrainian president-elect Volodymyr Zelensky<\/strong><\/span><\/a> on his landslide election<\/a><\/strong><\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Speaking with journalists on Monday afternoon, nearly a day after the comedian romped home with 73 per cent of the vote, Kremlin spokesperson\u00a0Dmitry Peskov said it was \u201ctoo early\u201d to talk about a phone call to Kiev. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Russia would only open the doors of cooperation after judging \u201cconcrete actions\u201d of the new president.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe respect the Ukrainian elections, more so that the verdict was very clear,\u201d he said. \u201cBut the legitimacy of these elections is still under question given that 3.5 million people were unable to vote.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Mr Peskov was referring to the estimated populations living in eastern Ukraine\u2019s conflict zone and under the control of Russian-backed armed formations.<\/span><\/p>\n

In total, nearly 20 million voters took part in Sunday\u2019s vote, with a higher-than-expected turnout at 63 per cent.\u00a0International observers have described the elections as the cleanest in Ukraine\u2019s history, with only minor violations recorded.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Earlier, the Russian prime minister Dmitry Medvedev warned against expecting an immediate warming of relations. Writing on social media, he said<\/strong><\/span><\/a> the election of Mr Zelensky was an indication that Ukrainians wanted to take a \u201ccommon sense\u201d attitude to relations with Russia. But he added that improving cooperation required \u201chonesty and a pragmatic and responsible approach\u201d.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Over the course of a minimalist election campaign, Mr Zelensky offered few clues about his political thinking. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But one area where he has been outspoken has been his explicit rejection of the soft ethnic-nationalism pursued by his opponent. Instead, the populist candidate has offered\u00a0olive branches to the Russian-speaking populations of the southeast. He also suggested that Ukraine needed to be more sympathetic to the people living in the conflict zone in the east.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

That approach seems to have helped him to achieve what no previous president has achieved: transcend traditional voting patterns split east-west on language and identity lines.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In the event, Mr Zelensky was supported with massive majorities in all regions of Ukraine. Mr Poroshenko was only able to claim one region, Lviv, in the west, with just over half of the vote.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

That redrawing of the political map has created new problems for Moscow, who will find it difficult to present Mr Zelensky as a\u00a0threat to ordinary Russians.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Continues \u2026<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The comedian turned president scored a landslide win but it remains to be seen if he follows western dictates, like Poroshenko. Or seeks reconciliation with Moscow. So Putin may just be playimg a “wait and see” game <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[58,91,116],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-187192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Current_Affairs","category-russia","category-ukraine"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=187192"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187192\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":187194,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187192\/revisions\/187194"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=187192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=187192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=187192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}