Russia opposes Ukraine freedom

 ISW:

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov demanded that any future peace agreement in Ukraine include conditions to prevent the election and establishment of future pro-Western governments in Ukraine. Lavrov insisted on May 23 that any peace agreement must include conditions preventing the "repetition of what brought putschists to power through a bloody revolution," referring to Ukraine's 2014 Euromaidan protests and the Revolution of Dignity, which drove out Ukraine's former pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych.[1] Lavrov also reiterated Russian President Vladimir Putin's repeated claim that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is not the legitimate leader of Ukraine and claimed that Russia could negotiate with the leadership of Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada (parliament) instead of Zelensky.

Russian officials often deliberately misread the Ukrainian Constitution to claim that Zelensky's government is illegitimate since Ukraine did not hold presidential elections in 2024, although the Ukrainian Constitution and law prohibit the government from holding elections during times of martial law and external aggression.[2] Russian officials have repeatedly characterized Ukraine's Euromaidan protests and Revolution of Dignity as a "coup," and leverage this narrative to reinforce Russia's claims that the current Ukrainian government is not legitimate and thus cannot negotiate with Russia.[3] Lavrov's statement is also an explicit demand for regime change in Ukraine as a condition of any future peace agreement – a demand that Russian officials routinely make under the guise of demands for "denazification" in Ukraine.[4] Russian officials will likely falsely frame any future pro-Western government in Ukraine as inheriting the illegitimacy of all Ukrainian governments since 2014 and set conditions to claim that any agreement that Russia concludes with Ukraine is non-binding.
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Russia appears to have a paranoia about the governments of nearby countries.  While Russia is controlling the largest land mass of any government in the world, it wants to control the governments of adjoining states.  Russia should not have a say in the government of Ukraine any more than the US would have a say in the government of Canada.  In fact, Canada is allowed to elect left-wing kooks.