Nearly one year past the expiration of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s first five-year term, the U.S. and Russia are in agreement that Ukrainians must go to the polls and decide whether to keep their head of state.
Russia has insisted it will not sign a peace agreement until Ukraine agrees to hold elections, and the U.S. is now “floating” the idea of a three-stage plan: ceasefire, then Ukrainian elections, then inking of a peace deal.
Zelenskyy’s term in office was supposed to end last May, with elections originally slated for April 2024. But the president’s aides have said elections will not be held until six months after the end of martial law. The Ukrainian constitution prohibits holding elections under martial law.
With his popularity having plummeted nearly 40% since the war’s outbreak, Zelenskyy’s future could be in jeopardy if peace is reached and elections are triggered.
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Putin has said he won’t sign a peace agreement unless Ukraine agrees to hold elections. (Sputnik/Mikhail Metzel/Pool)
Earlier this month, Trump’s envoy for Russia and Ukraine Keith Kellogg said Washington wants Kyiv to hold elections, possibly by the end of the year, as soon as a peace deal is brokered.
Zelenskyy shot back that Ukrainians were alarmed by such statements.
“It is very important for Kellogg to come to Ukraine. Then he would understand the people and all our circumstances,” Zelenskyy said, in comments to The Guardian.
Other U.S. politicians called for Ukraine to have its elections on schedule last year.
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Ukraine advocates say post-war elections would be a far better option, but elections offer Russia an opportunity to sow chaos.
“The only person that benefits from elections before there’s a durable peace deal is Putin,” said Andrew D’Anieri, fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center. “The Kremlin loves elections, not in their own country, but elsewhere, because it provides an opportunity to destabilize things.”
Ukraine’s former President Petro Poroshenko also claimed that Ukrainian authorities would have an election before the end of the year. “Write it down – Oct. 26 this year,” he said in a recent interview.
But Davyd Arakhamia, the parliamentary leader of Zelenskyy’s Servant of the People party, denied Poroshenko’s claim in a Telegram post.
Zelenskyy has…
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