Let’s Put Demands for a Ukrainian Election to Rest

Media reporting on the 30-day ceasefire offer to Russia negotiated by the United States and Ukraine in Jeddah on Tuesday is focused on positive steps mentioned in the joint statement: restoring US security and intelligence assistance, returning kidnapped Ukrainian children, developing critical minerals, and putting the ball in Russia’s court.

We appreciate the dog that didn’t bark: the statement makes no mention of Ukraine needing to hold elections anytime soon.

Earlier this week, before the deal stuck in Jeddah, US officials warned reporters that US President Donald Trump was insisting to aides that the critical minerals deal would not be enough to restart aid and intelligence sharing. Trump also wanted Ukraine to make concessions sought by Russia, including that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy take steps toward holding elections and possibly resigning.

There remains a serious risk—even a likelihood—that this idea of forcing Ukraine into a wartime election is not dead. There could be non-public side deals, as well as future concessions to negotiate, including when it comes time to renew any 30-day ceasefire.

As such, it is important for the international community to understand why it is right, fair, legal, and wise that most Ukrainians do not want their legitimately elected government to hold the next election until after their national security is credibly guaranteed. They see premature and forced elections as far worse than an organizational headache: they are a threat to the very democracy for which Ukrainians are fighting.

To see why the conditions of wartime Ukraine are not suitable for free and fair elections, consider four key criteria set forth by the Venice Commission and the International Foundation for Electoral Systems:

• Equal access for all citizens: It is infeasible to ensure equal ballot access when nearly a third of the population has been forced to flee their homes as part of the largest displacement since World War II. Who would fund and administer polling across the top 20 countries hosting seven million Ukrainian refugees? Even within Ukraine, re-registering nearly four million internally displaced persons would be a massive undertaking. Would there be polling locations for soldiers on the frontlines? And of course, voters in occupied territories—where Russian military control makes elections impossible—deserve a say.
• Guaranteed safety of voters: Russia bombs Ukrainian cities on a daily basis, often targeting civilian infrastructure and large crowds. Ukrainians rightly would not believe for a second that Moscow would hold its fire on election day. Voting at the point of a gun—to the sound of air raid sirens and artillery fire—is not a free choice.
• Level playing field for political competition: Martial law imposes restrictions on Ukraine’s media space, with some television channels not broadcasting and others operating under state control. Similar imbalances relate to the physical environment, as the commander in chief has greater ability to campaign freely and showcase his leadership amid mobility restrictions and security threats.
• Constitutional compliance: As in most countries worldwide and throughout history, Ukraine’s law “On the Legal Regime of Martial Law” explicitly bans elections during wartime. As with most constitutional democracies, this is because free and fair democratic processes are impractical amid the displacement, danger, and disinformation of total war.

If these technical challenges were not enough, the geopolitical setting means that any Ukrainian election would become a devastating battleground of malign foreign influence. International mischaracterizations of Zelenskyy as a dictator who should immediately hold elections are Kremlin narratives, used by Russia and its propagandists in the West to great effect because they can be framed as natural concern for democracy. But the reality is the opposite: Bullying a war-torn nation into holding elections against the will of most Ukrainians is a geopolitical cudgel meant to weaken the internal cohesion of Ukrainian society and attempt to replace Zelenskyy with a more Moscow-friendly president of Ukraine.

It is possible that this geopolitical pressure tactic would backfire, as Ukrainian society has repeatedly demonstrated its ability to unite in the face of threats—just as it did when unfair treatment of Zelenskyy in the Oval Office only boosted his popularity at home. Some argue that by winning a new electoral mandate, Zelenskyy could consolidate society’s resolve to continue standing up to Russian imperial conquest, strengthening Kyiv’s hand in refusing to accept any peace deal that would compromise the future of Ukrainian sovereignty and security.

But in our view, the risks are too great to presume that the will of the Ukrainian people would freely determine the outcome of the elections and not leave a wake of social division that would be exploited by wartime enemies. To envision what elections might actually look like, one must consider how Russia and possibly the United States would interfere in the democratic process.

Second only to its state political interference within Russia itself, Moscow has always subverted democratic processes in Ukraine more aggressively than anywhere else. Bankrolling political parties, buying the majority of television news channels, creating false news platforms, unleashing bots and trolls on the online information space, cyber infiltration of civilian infrastructure, calling in bomb threats to key polling centers—attacking Ukrainian politics with these and other non-kinetic tools is old hat for the Kremlin. And the Russians would come to play more aggressively in 2025 than ever before.

Moreover, Russia would use its military positions in and around Ukraine to intimidate voters like never before. This time, the bomb threats would not be false bluffs. Drones and missiles would have tactical precision. Assassination would be a serious risk. And all this kinetic interference would be wrapped in salient information operations meant to convince Ukrainians that a vote for Zelenskyy is a vote for personal and national suicide.

In this malign influence campaign, Putin may have vocal international partners. See how Trump and Vice President JD Vance sought to embarrass Zelenskyy in the Oval Office, which Trump said was good for the public to see. The president then sent Sen. Lindsay Graham out the White House door to exclaim to reporters that Zelenskyy needed to go. See also how Trump, Vance, and Elon Musk interfered in the recent German election. Would it surprise anyone if Trump were to post on social media a week before a Ukrainian election, threatening that the country would never again get American weapons if voters were to reelect Zelenskyy?

Until robust and lasting security is won, the only winner of a Ukrainian election would be Russia and its autocratic partners around the world. Ukrainians understand that they are fighting to remain a democratic country, where elections truly represent a free and fair choice by the people, not a tool for manipulation and chaos while under fire by enemy forces.

Any further pressure on Ukraine to hold elections before its security is guaranteed should be denounced as imperial pressure incompatible with the principles of the free world.