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By Staff Writer
President Volodymyr Zelensky has said Ukraine is “ready for elections” if its partners can guarantee security, rejecting claims by US President Donald Trump that Kyiv is using the war to delay democracy.
Zelensky’s five-year term expired in May 2024, but elections have remained suspended under martial law imposed after Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. Speaking after Trump repeated his accusations in a Politico interview, Zelensky said elections could be held within 60 to 90 days if security was guaranteed with the help of the US and European allies.
“I’m asking now, and I’m stating this openly, for the US to help me, perhaps together with our European colleagues, to ensure security for the elections,” Zelensky said.
He dismissed suggestions he was clinging to power. “The issue of elections in Ukraine, I believe, depends first and foremost on our people, and this is a question for the people of Ukraine, not the people of other countries. With all due respect to our partners,” he said.
“I’ve heard hints that we’re clinging to power, or that I personally am clinging to the presidency” and “that’s why the war isn’t ending”, which he called “frankly, a completely unreasonable narrative”.
Zelensky won the 2019 election with more than 73 per cent of the vote. Since Russia’s invasion, Moscow has repeatedly labelled him illegitimate and demanded new elections as a condition of any ceasefire. “They talk about a democracy, but it gets to a point where it’s not a democracy anymore,” the US president told Politico.
The practical obstacles to wartime elections are significant. Frontline troops could struggle to vote, millions of refugees remain abroad, and polling stations would require extraordinary protection. The UN estimates around 5.7 million Ukrainians are currently displaced outside the country.
Ukrainian opposition figures remain firmly opposed. Lesia Vasylenko of the Golos party said on the BBC World Service that “elections are never possible in wartime”.
Oleksiy Goncharenko of the European Solidarity party added: “I am completely against the idea, I can’t even understand why Zelensky would say it.”
“It is completely impossible,” he said, citing the need for campaigning and open debate. “Maybe Zelensky sees it as an opportunity to hold quasi-elections that will be favourable to him, while he controls the media and his opponents are likely not ready.”
Oleksandr Merezhko, chair of Ukraine’s parliamentary foreign policy committee, said there is “strong consensus” across political parties and civil society that elections should not be held during martial law. “Even the opposition, which is against Zelensky and would like to see him removed are against elections, because they understand the danger of attempting to hold elections during the war,” he said.
“The idea was exactly what Putin would want,” Merezhko added. “An election campaign would be divisive. Having failed to destroy us from outside, Putin wants to destroy us from within, using elections as another tool to do so.”
Anton Grushetsky of the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology said only about 10 per cent of Ukrainians support holding a vote before a ceasefire. A KIIS poll in September found 63 per cent opposed elections even after a ceasefire with security guarantees.
Zelensky remains Ukraine’s most popular politician, polling at 22.3 per cent support in October, narrowly ahead of General Valerii Zaluzhnyi on 21.3 per cent.
The debate comes as Trump increases pressure on Kyiv to accept a peace deal that could involve territorial concessions. Zelensky said on Wednesday that a 20-point peace document would soon be handed to the US following joint talks with the Trump team and European partners. A leaked 28-point US draft last month was widely seen as favouring Russia.
European leaders said this week that “intensive work on the peace plan is continuing”. The Kremlin welcomed Trump’s recent comments, with spokesman Dmitry Peskov saying his views on Nato, territory and Ukraine’s losses “are in tune with our understanding”.
Zelensky is now on a diplomatic tour of Europe seeking to prevent a settlement that Kyiv fears would leave it vulnerable to renewed Russian attacks.