President Volodymyr Zelenskyy believes that moving toward elections during a war like this would mean tearing the country apart. Kyiv has already been pushed from various sides to hold elections under martial law, LB’s correspondent reports, citing the president’s remarks at a meeting with journalists on 22 August.
At the time, the position was clear: if partners proposed specific conditions for holding a vote safely, legitimately and democratically—with the participation of service members, abroad and in frontline areas—then Ukraine would agree. But there were no concrete proposals.
“Because it is impossible under the conditions we have right now, when Putin does not want to consider any options for a ceasefire. I believe that in a war like this, elections overall carry major risks. Elections right now would be a tsunami for the state that would split Ukraine. That is why my strategy is to bring the country to the end of the war and preserve an independent and sovereign state. And I am carrying it out,” he said.
Context
Earlier, the aggressor state Russia had declared the need to hold elections in Ukraine, trying to exploit the impossibility of conducting a vote within the legally prescribed timeframes because of the war. The need for a presidential election was also discussed in the United States. Zelenskyy said then that he was ready, if partners ensured complete security for the vote.
On 18 August, the day the president submitted Yevhen Khmara as a candidate for defence minister, former minister Mykhailo Fedorov published a video address in which he said mechanisms needed to be developed to hold elections before the war ends.