Name: Ukraine's President Zelenskyy ready to hold elections if security can be ensured | DW News
Uploaded: 2025-12-10T16:55:13.000Z
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Ukraine's president says that he is ready to hold elections if Kyiv's allies can ensure the poll's security.

The presidential term of Volodymyr Zelensky, who has been meeting with European allies this week, expired in May 2024.

The Ukrainian parliament's mandate ended a few months later, in August.

The president, under the United States, under President Donald Trump, has voiced support for Ukraine to hold elections.

But the country's constitution states that elections, whether presidential, parliamentary or local, cannot be held under martial law.

In a voice note to journalists, Zelensky said that he has asked Ukrainian lawmakers to draw proposals on how the election law could be amended.

I'm saying this openly, for the United States to help me, possibly together with our European colleagues, to ensure security for the elections.

Then in the next 60 to 90 days, Ukraine will be ready to hold elections.

I personally have the will and the readiness to do so.

Furthermore, since this is how things have turned out, I am asking the members of our faction, in principle, our parliamentarians, to prepare legislative proposals on the possibility of changing the legislative framework and the law on elections during martial law.

Let's bring in DW correspondent Nick Connolly, who's joining us from Kiev.

So Nick Zelinsky says that he's willing to hold elections.

And is that something that many Ukrainians want?

We heard Zelensky there saying that it would happen if security were provided and if parliamentarians want it to happen.

I can't really see it happening until there's at least some kind of cease fire.

Realistically, how are soldiers going to vote?

How are people near front lines where there are constant drone attacks going to vote?

That is all very difficult to see happening.

But equally, this is about Zelensky showing openness to what the Trump White House wants of him.

We've had Trump recently in frustration at what Trump sees as Zelensky's unwillingness to sign a deal and basically end this problem in a hurry, as Trump wants, asking out loud about Zelensky's legitimacy, as you mentioned, that the Ukrainian constitution doesn't allow for elections during martial law.

So I think for now, this is more about the kind of rhetorical, kind of optics about Zelensky showing some openness that.

But whether it actually happens, whether those MPs sign off on that, I think is still unclear.

As for the kind of public opinion, even people who are very, very critical of Zelensky, of those corruption scandals we've seen around Zelensky in the last couple of weeks.

There's been basically consensus in this country since Russia invaded in 2022 to leave internal politics for the future, for the time after the war, and

to focus on basically surviving as a nation.

And I think that is going to be a real danger for Ukraine.

If internal politics are reactivated and you get all those kind of different parties trying to jockey for influen, then Ukraine stops paying attention to the front lines and gets more occupied with itself.

And that is obviously something that the Russian side really wants, wants Russia, Ukraine to have, you know, big internal divisions, potentially street protests, different political parties fighting each other rather than focusing on the front lines.

So it is a real dangerous kind of prospect.

And lots of people here are very worried about the idea of elections during wartime.

Nick, Kiev has been under immense US Pressure.

What else are the Trump administration's demands?

Well, the big thing for now seems to be the demand that Ukraine sign off on basically giving up Donetsk region, even the bits of Donetsk region that Ukraine still controls, withdrawing without a fight.

That is obviously something that the Russians have been asking for, but

that is basically political poison for President Zelensky.

You can imagine soldiers coming back from the front lines asking, why were we in those trenches for so many years if we were just going to hand it over without a shot fired?

So that is something that is basically a kind of political time bomb for Zelensky if he were to agree to it.

And you can't really see him signing off on that.

He's already said that he doesn't have the legal or moral right to do that.

Again, people here in Ukraine think that's about destabilizing Ukraine in the future so that Russia can come back and take more territory.

And I think from the Ukrainian side, the big kind of unclear, unresolved issue is security guarantees.

NATO's seemingly off the table for now, but

some kind of hard and fast, legally binding security guarantees, not just from the Europeans, but

And there's no real sign that the Trump team, let alone his negotiators, Witkoff and Kushner, are offering anything that comes close.

And, Nick, new data is showing that Ukraine faces a military aid shortfall as its European allies struggle to plug the US Gap.

What sort of impact is that now potentially having on the battlefield?

I think, Sarah, we haven't seen it yet because there's always a significant lag Right.

Between the money arriving and then those deliveries coming.

But I think the only obvious source of that money is the Russian assets held in Belgium.

And for now, the Belgians are worried about confiscating rather than freezing that money because of legal repercussions in the future.

But that is basically the only game in town, and

the Europeans now have to work on that to provide Ukraine with more money next year.