Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has again ruled out elections for as long as the war with Russia lasts, keeping in place a suspension of voting that has run for more than four years.
“Elections right now are a tsunami for the state that will split Ukraine,” he told reporters in Kyiv in remarks released on August 23. He said his strategy was to bring the country to the end of the war and preserve an independent and sovereign State.
Voting is barred under the martial law in force since February 2022. The measure is renewed every 90 days through bills that the President submits to the Verkhovna Rada, the Ukrainian parliament, and signs into law once they pass.
Zelensky sent parliament the latest extension in July, running from August 2. His own five-year mandate expired in May 2024 and the renewals have kept him in office.
They were his first remarks since ousted defence minister Mykhailo Fedorov called for a wartime vote in a video address on August 18, the most direct internal challenge to him since the 2022 invasion.
Fedorov, 35, argued that Ukraine faced a crisis of governance after more than four years of fighting. “Democracy cannot be held hostage by Russia,” he said, according to Reuters.
Zelensky said Ukraine had come under pressure from several quarters to hold a vote, though no partner had set out conditions under which one could be run safely and legitimately.
Any ballot would have to allow soldiers, residents of front-line areas and millions of Ukrainians abroad to take part while protecting voters from Russian attacks, he said. That was impossible while Moscow refused a ceasefire, he added.
The President also gave his account of Fedorov’s removal, describing a breakdown between the then defence minister and then commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrskyi over the limits of ministry and military authority.
Fedorov was removed on July 15 after six months in the job, prompting weeks of demonstrations in Kyiv, Lviv, Odesa and Kharkiv. Zelensky dismissed Syrskyi six days later and replaced him with Mykhailo Drapatyi.
Zelensky said he had offered Fedorov four government posts since the dismissal and that all had been refused. The former minister has said he would return only to his old job.
The rejection comes as the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine publishes recordings implicating figures close to the President’s office in an alleged asset-seizure scheme. Washington and Moscow have both pressed Kyiv over the suspended electoral cycle.
The European Union approved a further €6.1 billion for Ukrainian air defence on August 24.
