Russia Will Consider Zelensky a Legitimate Target in a Week : Ex-CIA Analyst

Zelensky declared martial law on 24 February 2022, and has banned elections

Russia will consider Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky a legitimate target next week because that is when his term ends and his presidential powers expire, according to a former CIA analyst.

Larry Johnson, the former analyst, told Judge Andrew Napolitano’s “Judging Freedom” podcast that Zelensky’s term is up next Tuesday, and just because he did not hold an election, does not mean that he gets to stay on in power and be seen as legitimate by the Russians.

ALSO:

U.S. ARMY OFFICER RESIGNS OVER BIDEN’S SUPPORT OF ISRAEL’S GENOCIDE

NETANYAHU BENEFITS FROM CLASHES WITH PRESIDENTS: EX-BRITISH DIPLOMAT

‘ISRAEL IS ABOVE THE LAW’

“At that point, the Russians will consider him illegitimate… he will then become a legitimate target of the war as far as Russia is concerned,” he said.

He said Russia has followed the concept that states should not be out targeting leaders of other states.

“They’ve held to that,” he said. “Next Tuesday, that goes away.”

He continued, “His days are numbered now.”

Zelensky banned elections in his own country and recent polling shows he would lose.

Zelensky, who was wrapping up his first five-year term, found a loophole in the country’s constitution that states elections cannot be held while under martial law. Zelensky declared martial law on 24 February 2022, the day Russia invaded.

Zelensky, a law-degree-carrying comedian who played the Ukrainian president on a TV show, ran for office in 2019 and vowed to work to clean up the crony capitalism and corruption in Kyiv. The show was called “Servant of the People.”

The act worked and Zelensky, who was 41 in the spring of 2019, carried 73 percent of the vote. But his government was never serious about peace with Russia, and, instead, instigated a war by appeals to the U.S. and NATO and refusal to address grievances in the Donbas.

Vasily Nebenzia, Russia's ambassador to the UN, said earlier this year that Zelensky's "decision not to hold presidential elections makes him illegitimate after May 21," according to the Kyiv Independent.

The report cited Stanislav Shevchuk, a former head of the Constitutional Court, and Yulia Kyrychenko, a constitutional law expert at Ukraine's Center of Policy and Legal Reform, who said Zelensky’s term extension is legitimate.

“According to Article 108 of the Constitution, the president fulfills his duties until the next president takes office. There can be no vacuum of power during peacetime or wartime - this is guaranteed by the Constitution of Ukraine,” Shevchuk said.

FULL INTERVIEW: