Kyiv, Ukraine – United States President Donald Trump bristled at a question about his Ukrainian counterpart on Wednesday during an interview with media outlet Politico. Admonishing Volodymyr Zelenskyy for failing to hold a presidential election, he accused him of not ending the war with Russia as an excuse to cling to power.
“They talk about a democracy, but it gets to a point where it’s not a democracy any more,” Trump told Politico, referring to the presidency of Zelenskyy who was elected in April 2019 with more than 70 percent of the vote, but whose five-year term would, under normal circumstances, have expired in 2024.
There is a reason he’s still there, though. The Ukrainian constitution bans wartime elections, and Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion will enter its fifth year in February 2026.
Hours after Trump’s remarks, Zelenskyy responded, saying he was “ready” to hold an election – as long as Washington and, perhaps, Brussels could ensure its security.
“I’m asking – and now declaring it openly – the United States to help me, maybe along with European colleagues, to provide security for holding the vote,” Zelenskyy said. “I have the will and readiness for that.”
So why is Trump raising this issue now, and would it even be possible to hold an election during a war?
Is Trump repeating Russian talking points?
Trump is indeed “playing along” with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Lieutenant General Ihor Romanenko, former deputy head of Ukraine’s general staff of armed forces, told Al Jazeera.
Putin and his ministers have long called Zelenskyy “illegitimate” and dubbed his government a “neo-Nazi junta” that allegedly pits average Ukrainians against the “brotherly” Russian nation.
Last month, Trump unveiled a 28-point peace plan for Ukraine with short and vague clauses which offer few security guarantees for Kyiv and are widely seen as a Moscow wish list. Crucially, the plan would involve Ukraine ceding land already lost to Russia during the war, a line that Zelenskyy has repeatedly said he will not cross.
“Trump doesn’t care what’s going to happen to Ukraine and Ukrainians, what’s more important to him is that the war is settled somehow, and he can show his leadership and response to Ukraine and to Europeans,” Romanenko said.
Civilian observers agree.
“The Kremlin offered an ultimatum via Trump, and Ukraine refused,” Kyiv-based analyst Igar Tyshkevych told Al Jazeera.
And now, observers say, Trump is seeking to settle Europe’s bloodiest conflict since World War II before his upcoming summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
“Otherwise Trump will have to consult Xi, and that contradicts his conception of America First and Make America Great Again,” Tyshkevych said.
That’s why the upcoming two months will be “very complicated” for Ukraine as Washington is likely to frantically push for a peace deal, he said.
What are the hurdles an election would face?
Zelenskyy said on Wednesday that Trump’s suggestion of him clinging to the presidency were “frankly, completely unreasonable”. He added that he would ask his Public Servant party, which dominates the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine’s lower house of parliament, to draft a law to allow voting during martial law.
However, practically, it could be extremely difficult to hold an election in Ukraine now.
In February, Zelenskyy and his officials also responded to Trump’s demands that they hold a presidential vote. They insisted it couldn’t be held while Moscow pummelled Ukrainian cities with drones and missiles and occupied almost one-fifth of Ukraine.
Ukrainian nationals in occupied areas are subject to abduction, torture and even death for taking an anti-Russian stance and, therefore, could not possibly take part in any vote.
An election would likely be a logistical nightmare as millions of Ukrainians have been displaced or fled to Europe or other nations where embassies and consulates would not be able to handle the volume of voters.
The hours-long blackouts all over Ukraine, which follow Moscow’s pinpointed, repeated strikes on Ukrainian power generation and transmission infrastructure, would make an election even more difficult to hold.
Who would ensure voters’ safety?
Only Washington’s full commitment to interfere militarily if Russia were to violate a ceasefire could guarantee security, analyst Tyshkevych said.
But that’s a step that Washington has not taken and is not likely to take now, he added. “I barely imagine security guarantees that will ensure the security of the election without ending the war.”
How soon could an election be held?
Even if Kyiv begins preparations for a vote, it likely could not be held much earlier than March 2026.
The Verkhovna Rada will take several weeks to draft, submit and vote in a law allowing the election. Election authorities would then take several more weeks to approve all candidates and allow them to campaign. All earlier timelines are “fantasy,” Tyshkevych said.
Would soldiers be able to vote?
Kyiv did hold presidential and parliamentary elections after 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea and backed a separatist uprising in the southeastern Donbas region.
But the hostilities were limited to Donbas and were labelled “an anti-terrorism operation” that did not require martial law to be imposed on Ukraine.
Servicemen were able vote – but most did not insist on participating, Lieutenant General Romanenko said.
This time, securing the vote of hundreds of thousands of servicemen would be near-impossible without a stable, months-long ceasefire, he added.
A truce would have to guarantee every serviceman’s chance to cast a ballot – or risk triggering an uproar among them. “They will demand full participation,” Romanenko said.
What do Ukrainians say about holding an election?
Most Ukrainians are opposed to holding an election without a stable peace settlement in place.
In September, 63 percent of those surveyed opposed holding a vote even immediately after a ceasefire, according to a survey by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology.
Only 22 percent believed elections could be held in the wake of a ceasefire with security guarantees, the poll said.
“Now is not the time,” Mykola Chernenko, a 29-year-old sales manager at an electronics store in Kyiv, told Al Jazeera. “We have to focus on ending the war, and will sort all the politics out later,” he said.
Would Zelenskyy be re-elected?
Zelenskyy’s approval ratings soared above 80 percent in the immediate aftermath of the full-scale invasion by Russia in 2022.
However, his popularity has diminished since. Valerii Zaluzhnyi, a burly, taciturn top commander and four-star general whom Zelenskyy fired in early 2024 is Ukraine’s most popular politician these days.
Some 73 percent of Ukrainians polled in July said they trust Zaluzhny, according to the Rating Sociological Group, a Kyiv pollster.
Zaluzhny, who now serves as ambassador to the United Kingdom, has largely refrained from making any public remarks on the matter.
The same poll found that Zelenskyy is trusted by 65 percent of Ukrainians, while 29 percent said they “distrust” him.
A scandal, which unfolded last month over the alleged involvement of Zelenskyy’s close allies in a corruption scheme linked to nuclear power generation, is likely to dampen his popularity further in the energy-starved nation.
Are elections allowed in other countries during war?
Two years after the full-scale invasion, Russia held a presidential election – even though hostilities were raging in four partly-occupied Ukrainian regions, which Moscow declared part of its territory in September 2022.
Many Ukrainians in occupied areas were forced to cast their ballots under duress, and Putin predictably won with 88 percent of the vote.
But Moscow never openly declared martial law and stubbornly dubs its invasion of Ukraine “a special military operation”. Anyone who calls it a “war” faces fines, arrest or Kremlin-orchestrated trials.
Other ex-Soviet nations have held presidential elections during ongoing, yet frozen, armed conflicts – notably, Armenia and Azerbaijan, whose conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh began in 1988 and ended in 2023.
Iraq and Afghanistan also held presidential and parliamentary elections during active domestic conflicts.
