A famous piece of Normandy Talks in Paris from December 2019 where Zelensky and Putin sat at one table with Merkel and Macron. The reason why Zelensky is smiling is that Putin - who for 5 years denied any Russian engagement in war in Donbas against all available evidence - suddenly speaks as if these regions were already Russian, and only require legal recognition. But this is only an interesting detail here - what is important is that Putin consistently denied legitimacy of the Ukrainian authorities after miserable escape of Yanukovych to Russia on 24 February 2014. Using the argument of "illegitimacy", as if he was Ukrainian constitutional lawyers, Putin claimed invalidity of the Budapest Memorandum, past border treaties and refused negotiations with Ukrainian government. Still, seeing the Russian covert invasion stalled, Putin met with president Poroshenko and then Zelensky in person and negotiated ceasefire for the "new republics" while still denying their representation. The ceasefire didn't hold long, Russian forces broke it literally as the ceasefire was signed, and continued their offensive on Debaltseve. Russia did not execute any of the other commitments agreed in Paris, such as returning control of the border to Ukraine.