Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy used to be close out of the discussions regarding the way forward for his nation, which happened in Saudi Arabia on Feb. 18, 2025. In truth, there have been no Ukrainian representatives, nor any Eu Union ones – simply U.S. and Russian delegations, and their Saudi hosts.
The assembly – which adopted a mutually complimentary telephone name between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian chief Vladimir Putin simply days previous – used to be gleefully celebrated in Moscow. The absence of Ukraine in deciding its personal long run could be very a lot consistent with Putin’s coverage towards its neighbor. Putin has lengthy rejected Ukrainian statehood and the legitimacy of the Ukrainian executive, or as he calls it the “Kyiv regime.”
Whilst the U.S. delegation did reiterate that long run discussions must contain Ukraine at some level, the Trump management’s movements and phrases don’t have any doubt undermined Kyiv’s place and affect.
To that finish, the U.S. is more and more falling consistent with Moscow on a key plank of the Kremlin’s plan to delegitimize Zelenskyy and the Ukrainian executive: calling for elections in Ukraine as a part of any peace deal.
Wondering Zelenskyy’s legitimacy
Difficult Zelenskyy’s legitimacy is a part of a planned ongoing propaganda marketing campaign by means of Russia to discredit Ukrainian management, weaken reinforce for Ukraine from its key allies and take away Zelenskyy – and doubtlessly Ukraine – as a spouse in negotiations.
Claims by means of the Russian president that his nation is able for peace negotiations seem, to many observers of its three-year struggle, extremely suspect given Russia’s ongoing assaults on its neighbor and its steadfast refusal up to now to conform to any brief truce.
But the Kremlin is pushing the narrative that the issue is that there’s no reputable Ukrainian authority with which it will probably deal. As such, Putin can proclaim his commitments to a peace with out making any commitments or compromises essential to any true negotiation procedure.
In the meantime, portray Zelenskyy as a “dictator” dampens the enthusiastic reinforce that after greeted him from democratic international locations. This, is flip, can translate to the aid and even finish of army reinforce for Kyiv, Putin hopes, permitting him a fillip in what has develop into a struggle of attrition.
What Putin wishes for this plan to paintings is a keen spouse to assist get the message out that Zelenskyy and the present Ukraine executive aren’t reputable representatives in their nation – and into this hole the brand new U.S. management seems to have stepped.
Then-candidate Volodymyr Zelenskyy at a polling station all over Ukraine’s presidential election in Kiev on March 31, 2019.
Genya Savilov/AFP by the use of Getty Pictures)
Dictating phrases
Take the narrative on elections.
On the assembly in Saudi Arabia, the U.S. reportedly mentioned elections in Ukraine as being a key a part of any peace deal. Trump himself has raised the possibility of elections, noting in a Feb. 18 press convention: “We have a situation where we haven’t had elections in Ukraine, where we have martial law.” The U.S. president went on to assert, incorrectly, that Zelenskyy’s approval ranking used to be all the way down to “4%.” The most recent polling if truth be told presentations the Ukrainian president to be sitting on a 57% approval ranking.
An afternoon later, Trump upped the assaults, describing Zelenskyy as a “dictator without elections.”
Such statements echo Russia’s narrative that the federal government in Kyiv is against the law.
The Kremlin’s claims referring to what it describes because the “legal aspects related to his [Zelenskyy’s] legitimacy” are in line with the idea that the Ukraine president’s five-year time period as president of Ukraine will have to have led to 2024.
And elections in Ukraine would have taken position in Would possibly of that yr had it now not been for the martial legislation that Ukraine put into position when the Russian Federation introduced a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
The Martial Legislation Act – which Ukraine imposed on Feb. 24, 2022 – explicitly bans all elections in Ukraine during the emergency motion.
And whilst the Ukrainian Charter handiest contains language in regards to the extension of parliament’s powers till martial legislation is lifted, constitutional attorneys in Ukraine generally tend to agree that the implication is this additionally applies to presidential powers.
However what the legislation says, the Kremlin’s wondering of the democratic establishments of Ukraine and its push for elections in Ukraine have discovered traction in Washington of overdue. Trump’s particular envoy Gen. Keith Kellogg declared on Feb. 1 that elections “need to be done” as a part of peace procedure, announcing that elections are a “beauty of a solid democracy.”
The poll field entice
Zelenskyy isn’t adverse to elections in theory and has agreed that elections will have to be held when the time is correct. “Once martial law is over, then the ball is in parliament’s court – the parliament then picks a date for elections,” Zelenskyy mentioned in a Jan. 2 interview.
And he seems to have the backing of nearly all of Ukrainians. In Would possibly 2024, 69% of Ukrainians polled stated Zelenskyy will have to stay president till the tip of marshal legislation, and then elections will have to be held.
The problem, as Zelenskyy has stated, is the timing and instances. “During the war, there can be no elections. It’s necessary to change legislation, the constitution, and so on. These are significant challenges. But there are also nonlegal, very human challenges,” he stated on Jan. 4.
Even opposition politicians in Ukraine agree that now isn’t the time. Petro Poroshenko, Zelenskyy’s primary political rival, has pushed aside the theory of wartime elections, as has Inna Sovsun, the chief of the opposition Golos Birthday party.
Except logistical issues of making sure unfastened and honest elections in the course of a struggle, the warfare would provide logistical hurdles to campaigning and gaining access to polling websites. There may be the query of whether or not and the right way to come with Ukrainians in Russian-occupied territories and people who are internally displaced, in addition to the 6.5 million who fled preventing and these days live in another country.
Excellent elections … and dangerous
Russia did, after all, dangle elections all over the present warfare. However the 2024 election that Putin gained with 87% of the vote used to be, in keeping with maximum world observers, neither unfastened nor honest.
Fairly, it used to be a sham vote that handiest underlined what maximum political scientists will verify: Elections are at absolute best a essential however inadequate marker of democracy.
This level isn’t wasted on Ukrainians, whose dedication to democracy bolstered within the years main as much as the 2022 invasion. Certainly, a survey taken a couple of months into the struggle discovered that 76% of Ukrainians agreed that democracy used to be the most efficient type of governance – up from 41% 3 years previous.
There are different causes Ukraine could be cautious of elections. The adverse nature of political campaigns will also be divisive, particularly amongst a society in top tension.
Ukrainian politicians have overtly argued that maintaining an election all over the struggle could be destabilizing for Ukrainian society, undermining the inner cohesion in face of Russian aggression.
Russian International Minister Sergey Lavrov arrives for a gathering between Russia and the US in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on Feb. 18, 2025.
Russian International Ministry/Anadolu by the use of Getty Pictures
Out of doors affect
After which there’s worry over out of doors affect in any election. Ukrainians have had sufficient enjoy with Russian meddling of their politics to take it as a right that the Kremlin will try to put a thumb at the scale.
Russia has for the reason that breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991 hired its really extensive assets to persuade Ukraine’s politics thru all to be had way, starting from propaganda, financial pressures and incentives to power blackmail, threats and use of violence.
In 2004, Moscow’s electoral manipulations in desire of the pro-Russian candidate, Viktor Yanukovich, resulted in the Orange Revolution – through which Ukrainians rose as much as reject rigged elections. 9 years later, Yanukovich – who turned into president in 2010 – used to be deposed although the Revolution of Dignity, which noticed Ukrainians oust a person many noticed as a Russian stooge in desire of a trail towards higher integration with Europe.
Putin’s historical past of meddling in elections extends past Ukraine, after all. Maximum not too long ago, the Romanian Constitutional Court docket annulled the rustic’s presidential elections, bringing up an electoral procedure compromised by means of overseas interference.
An unattainable place
In elevating elections as a prerequisite to negotiations, Putin is atmosphere a
“catch-22” entice for Ukraine: The Ukrainian Charter states that elections can occur handiest when martial legislation is lifted; however the lifting of the martial legislation is imaginable handiest when the “hot phase” of the struggle is over. So and not using a ceasefire, no election is imaginable.
However in refusing to conform to elections, Ukraine will also be forged because the blockage to any peace deal – taking part in to a story this is already forming within the U.S. management that Kyiv is the issue and can want to be sidelined for there to be development.
In brief, in reputedly echoing Russian speaking issues on an election being a prerequisite for peace, the U.S. places the Ukrainian executive in an unattainable place: Comply with the vote and possibility inner department and out of doors interference, or reject it and make allowance Moscow – and, most likely, Washington – to border Ukraine’s leaders as illegitimate and not able to barter at the behalf in their other people.
