MOSCOW, May 27. /TASS/. Ukrainian troops do not need to follow orders from Vladimir Zelensky anymore because he is no longer the country’s lawful president, nor its supreme commander-in-chief, Viktor Medvedchuk, former leader of the Opposition Platform-For Life party, which is now banned in Ukraine, said.

"For Ukrainian citizens today, the biggest thing is that Zelensky is an illegitimate president and that he is no longer the supreme commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian army. Since May 21, 2024 he is nobody to all categories of servicemen," Medvedchuk said in his opinion column on the smotrim.ru online portal. "Currently, not only are servicemen not bound to follow Zelensky’s orders but they must disobey them because Zelensky is an impostor and usurper of power. He who obeys them risks being held liable for following illegal orders," the politician explained.

The expiration of Zelensky’s authority as president and supreme commander-in-chief also means that current mobilization in Ukraine is also illegal, Medvedchuk continued. According to him, the authority of heads of military administrations must also be suspended because they obtained it per Zelensky’s decree.

Zelensky’s term as president expired on the night of May 21. The Kiev regime insists that the presidential election cannot be held during martial law, introduced by Zelensky himself.

On May 24, at a joint conference with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, Russian leader Vladimir Putin noted that Zelensky’s legitimacy had expired. He stressed that it is up to Ukraine to resolve the problem of Zelensky’s legitimacy both politically and legally in order to draw conclusions on the basis of a legal analysis of the country’s constitution which authorities may extend their legitimacy without an election.