Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that China and North Korea should be included in ceasefire negotiations for the war in Ukraine, along with “India, Brazil, South Africa, all BRICS countries.”
BRICS is an economic collective founded by Brazil, Russia, India, and China in 2009. South Africa joined in 2010, contributing the “S” to the end of the group’s name. Membership was expanded again in 2023 to include Egypt, Iran, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Ethiopia. Thirteen more nations were added as lower-status “partner countries” in 2024.
Putin did not mention any of the 2023 members or 2024 partner countries by name, so it was unclear if he meant to include all of them in Ukraine peace negotiations. If so, the talks would become rather crowded.
The Ukrainians would be unlikely to welcome North Korea to the table, as the Communist dictatorship has been furnishing mercenary troops to Russia for its war effort.
On Thursday, the South Korean military said North Korea sent another 3,000 troops to Russia in January and February of this year, adding to at least 11,000 dispatched previously. North Korea has also sent missiles and artillery weapons to Russia. South Korea said at least 4,000 of the North Koreans have been killed in battle.
Putin might have gone out of his way to include North Korea in the negotiating process because North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un is preparing for another visit to Russia later this year.
Kim visited Russia twice before, in 2019 and 2023. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrew Rudenko, who traveled to North Korea this month, confirmed on Thursday that another Kim visit is in the planning stages, although he did not specify a time frame.
Putin made his remarks during a visit to Murmansk, the world’s largest city north of the Arctic Circle. He also said from Murmansk that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his administration could be replaced by a “temporary international administration” that would sign peace accords and hold elections.
Putin proposed an interim government “under the auspices of the United Nations, plus the United States, “European countries,” and “partners and friends” of Russia could take control of Ukraine.
This international administration would “hold democratic elections and bring to power a capable government enjoying the trust of the people and then to start talks with them about a peace treaty.”
“This is just one of the options. I am not saying that there are no others,” he said.
Putin has long maintained Zelensky’s government is illegitimate, and not just because Zelensky refused to hold elections in May 2024 because the country has been under martial law since Russia invaded in 2022. On Thursday, Putin explicitly stated that Zelensky could not restore the legitimacy of government in Kyiv by holding elections, because “all others” who might succeed him would be “illegitimate” as well.
“It’s unclear for Russia who to sign anything with in Ukraine, because tomorrow there might be different leaders,” he said.
Soon after his invasion began Putin asserted the “regime” in Kyiv was “illegitimate” because it was founded by a “coup” in 2014. He was referring to the fall of Ukraine’s pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych.
Although Yanukovych, like Putin, denounced his ouster as a “coup,” he was in fact duly impeached by the Ukrainian parliament for corruption, and fled into exile in Russia. He is still wanted by both the Ukrainian government and Interpol for embezzling billions of dollars from Ukrainian state assets. Ukraine additionally convicted him, in absentia, for high treason in 2017 for aiding and abetting Russian aggression.
Yanukovych was succeeded not by Zelensky, but by Petro Poroshenko. Zelensky was elected in 2019 and, as noted above, was scheduled to stand for re-election in 2024. As for Putin, his own “election victories” are not exactly considered a model of honest democracy and legitimate government. Putin has a long habit of responding to criticism of his rigged elections by dismissing other elected leaders as “illegitimate.”
In January 2025, after President Donald Trump’s second inauguration, Putin repeated his criticism that Zelensky is an “illegitimate” leader who “has no right to sign anything.”
“Today, Putin once again confirmed that he is afraid of negotiations, afraid of strong leaders, and does everything possible to prolong the war,” Zelensky responded.
Zelensky unsurprisingly refused to accept Putin’s latest criticism of his legitimacy to hold office, or Putin’s idea to replace him with an international administration stuffed full of Russia’s cronies.
“If Putin is once again struggling to understand who he needs to engage with to seriously move toward ending this war, maybe he should just pop some pills to kickstart his brain activity – assuming such pills still have any effect on him,” Zelensky’s communications adviser Dmytro Lytvyn said on Thursday.
“By the way, in just the past 24 hours, there have already been at least two confirmed Russian strikes that damaged Ukraine’s energy infrastructure and that’s without even having the full reports for the day yet,” Lytvyn added.
Russia and Ukraine ostensibly agreed to stop attacking each others’ energy infrastructure this week, although each side has accused the other of violating the agreement.
The Trump White House also rejected Putin’s idea for an international governorship of Ukraine on Thursday. A White House national security spokesperson told Reuters that Ukraine’s government is, and must remain, “determined by its constitution and citizens.”
