'Zelensky Is to Blame for the War and Could Have Stopped It': Personal Guilt as a Propaganda Tool

The claim collapses on the dates alone

To blame Zelensky for starting the war, you have to ignore an elementary timeline:

Year	Event	Zelensky
2014, February–March	Russia annexes Crimea	Actor, starring in “Servant of the People”
2014, April	War in Donbas begins	Five years away from politics
2014–2019	War, 13,000+ killed	No connection to power whatsoever
2019, May	Zelensky’s inauguration	Becomes president of a country already at war for five years
2022, 24 February	Full-scale invasion	The decision is made by Putin, not Zelensky

You cannot be “the cause” of a war that began five years before your term in office. This is not a political judgment — it is a physical impossibility.

What Zelensky actually did before 24 February 2022

If you look at his actual actions rather than propaganda clichés, Zelensky was the most negotiation-oriented president Ukraine has had since the war began:

2019 election platform

His central promise: end the war in Donbas through negotiations. That is exactly why 73% of voters chose him in the second round.

Normandy Format, December 2019

A personal meeting with Putin in Paris — his first and last. The result: prisoner exchanges (288 people in September 2019, another 76 in December 2019), troop disengagement at Zolote and Petrivske.

Silence regime, 2020

The longest ceasefire in the entire history of the Donbas war up to that point.

February 2022

• Zelensky publicly asks for a personal meeting with Putin anywhere in the world. Putin refuses.
• 23 February 2022 — Zelensky addresses the citizens of Russia in Russian: “We are told that you want war. It is very hard to believe this is true.”
• 24 February 2022, 5:00 a.m. — Putin announces a “special operation.” At that hour Zelensky was asleep in Kyiv, not “starting a war.”

A person who spent years trying to negotiate, publicly and privately, cannot be “the cause” of Putin’s decision to invade.

Istanbul 2022: the myth of “the peace that was sabotaged”

One of the key elements of the “Zelensky doesn’t want peace” narrative is the claim that “in March 2022 they almost signed a deal, but Boris Johnson came and forbade it.”

The reality:

• What Russia offered in Istanbul: permanent neutral status, caps on the Ukrainian Armed Forces, no real security guarantees, de facto recognition of Crimea as Russian, “special status” for Donbas.
• What Russia refused to sign: any binding security guarantees from five countries (an analogue of NATO Article 5). Without those, “neutrality” is capitulation with no protection against the next invasion.
• What actually broke the talks: not Johnson, but Bucha. When Russian forces withdrew from around Kyiv in late March 2022, hundreds of civilian bodies were uncovered. Trust in Putin’s signature fell to zero.

This myth is analyzed in detail in a separate article — “Boris Johnson sabotaged the peace deal."

"Just give up Crimea and Donbas” — three reasons it doesn’t work

1. Zelensky has no such right

This is the key point propagandists ignore. The Constitution of Ukraine:

• Article 2: “The territory of Ukraine within its existing borders is integral and inviolable.”
• Article 17: “The protection of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine… is the most important function of the state.”
• Article 73: “Issues of changing the territory of Ukraine shall be resolved exclusively by an all-Ukrainian referendum.”

The president legally cannot “give up territories” unilaterally. Not Zelensky, not Poroshenko, not anyone. The question of territory is decided by a national referendum, not a single person.

Anyone urging Zelensky to “just give it up” either does not know Ukraine’s Constitution or is knowingly demanding that he violate his oath of office.

2. Ukrainians do not want it

According to KIIS and Rating polls (2023–2024):

• 85–90% of Ukrainians consider any territorial concessions unacceptable
• 70–80% believe in victory
• Fewer than 10% are willing to accept territorial compromises

This is not “Zelensky’s stubbornness” — it is the position of a 44-million-strong nation. The president of Ukraine is not an autocrat. He cannot order the country to surrender against its will.

3. A concession does not stop Russia

The most important fact, which nullifies the entire “give it up and there will be peace” thesis:

In September 2022, Putin annexed the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions — including areas Russia did not even control. There were no Russian tanks in Zaporizhzhia or Kherson, yet “under the Russian Constitution” this is already “Russian land.”

That means: even if you give up “the occupied,” Russia will continue to claim the unoccupied. The logic of “just give up a little more” is endless.

Historical precedents confirm this:

• Georgia, 2008 — after the war, Abkhazia and South Ossetia effectively passed under Russian control. This did not stop the pressure, threats, or the 2014 invasion of Ukraine.
• Minsk-2, 2015 — Ukraine made broad concessions on the “special status” of Donbas. Russia used those years to prepare the full-scale invasion.
• Munich, 1938 — Czechoslovakia gave up the Sudetenland. Six months later, Hitler took the rest of the country.

A concession to an aggressor does not buy peace. It buys time for his next blow.

What Russia actually wants (in Russia’s own words)

If you assume “it’s only about Crimea and Donbas,” it’s worth listening to what the Kremlin itself says about its war aims, not Western commentators:

• July 2021 — Putin’s essay “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians”: “Russians and Ukrainians are one people,” the Ukrainian nation does not exist.
• February 2022, pre-war speech: Ukraine is “not a real state,” “created by Lenin,” its borders are “a historical mistake.”
• June 2022: Putin publicly compares himself to Peter the Great, who “did not take, but returned” lands.
• December 2021 ultimatum to NATO: Russia demands the withdrawal of NATO forces from all countries that joined after 1997. That is, the claims involve Poland, the Baltic states, Romania — not just Ukraine.
• April 2022 — Timofey Sergeytsev’s programmatic article in RIA Novosti, “What Russia Should Do with Ukraine”: “de-Ukrainization,” elimination of the name “Ukraine,” “re-education” of the population.

None of these statements is about territory. All of them are about destroying Ukraine as a state and Ukrainian identity as such. Giving up Crimea and Donbas would not “stop the war” — it would take part in this destruction.

Who benefits from the “Zelensky is to blame” narrative

This is not a spontaneous opinion. It is a constructed narrative with specific beneficiaries:

1. The Kremlin — it removes the responsibility of the actual aggressor. If “both sides are at fault” or “Zelensky is at fault,” then sanctions become inappropriate and a tribunal becomes unnecessary.
2. Anti-Ukrainian politicians in the West — a justification for cutting aid: “why help someone who started it himself?”
3. Advocates of negotiations over Ukraine’s head — if Zelensky is “illegitimate” (another pro-Russian narrative) and “to blame for the war,” then deals can be made without him. U.S. and Russia — over Ukraine.
4. Pro-Kremlin voices inside Ukraine — demoralization: “it’s all because of one person, replace him and the war will end.”

This is Putin’s classic tactic of guilt erasure: the victim is always “to blame herself.” Georgia in 2008 “provoked it”; Chechens were “terrorists”; the downed MH17 was “a Ukrainian missile”; the Skripal poisoning was “a British provocation”; Bucha was “a staged scene.” Zelensky in the 2022 war is the same phenomenon, another episode.

Conclusion

The claim “Zelensky is to blame for the war and could have stopped it by giving up Crimea and Donbas” rests on four false premises:

1. That the war began in 2022 rather than 2014 (false — Zelensky was not yet in politics).
2. That the president of Ukraine can give up territories unilaterally (false — the Constitution forbids it).
3. That ceding territory will stop Russia (false — Putin has already annexed what he does not control).
4. That Russia’s goals are about territory (false — Putin himself talks about destroying Ukraine as a state).

The one to blame for the war is the one who started the invasion. The one who can stop the war is the one who started it — by withdrawing his troops. Everything else is an attempt to transfer responsibility from the criminal to the victim.