Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has declared that his government was prepared to hold elections within three months if the United States and Kyiv’s other allies can ensure the security of the voting process.
Zelenskyy issued his statement on Tuesday as he faced renewed pressure from US President Donald Trump, who suggested in an interview with a news outlet that the Ukrainian government was using Russia’s war on their country as an excuse to avoid elections.
Wartime elections are forbidden under Ukrainian law, and Zelenskyy’s term in office as the country’s elected president expired last year.
“I’m ready for elections, and moreover I ask… that the US help me, maybe together with European colleagues, to ensure the security of an election,” Zelenskyy said in comments to reporters.
“And then in the next 60-90 days, Ukraine will be ready to hold an election,” he said.
In a Politico news article published earlier on Tuesday, Trump was quoted as saying: “You know, they [Ukraine] talk about a democracy, but it gets to a point where it’s not a democracy any more.”
Zelenskyy dismissed the suggestion that he was clinging to power as “totally inadequate”.
He then said that he would ask parliament to prepare proposals for new legislation that could allow for elections during martial law.
Earlier this year, Ukraine’s parliament overwhelmingly approved a resolution affirming the legitimacy of Zelenskyy’s wartime stay in office, asserting the constitutionality of deferring the presidential election while the country fights Russia’s invasion.
In February, Trump also accused Zelenskyy of being a “dictator”, echoing claims previously made by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Zelenskyy and other officials have routinely dismissed the idea of holding elections while frequent Russian air strikes take place across the country, nearly a million troops are at the front and millions more Ukrainians are displaced. Also uncertain is the voting status of those Ukrainians living in the one-fifth of the country occupied by Russia.
Polls also show that Ukrainians are against holding wartime elections, but they also want new faces in a political landscape largely unchanged since the last national elections in 2019.
Ukraine, which is pushing back on a US-backed peace plan seen as Moscow-friendly, is also seeking strong security guarantees from its allies that would prevent any new Russian invasion in the future.
Washington’s peace proposal involves Ukraine surrendering land that Russia has not captured, primarily the entire industrial Donbas region, in return for security promises that fall short of Kyiv’s aspirations, including its wish to join the NATO military alliance.
