Zelensky rules out wartime vote, ex-minister Fedorov calls for elections

The debate over elections in Ukraine has left academic ground and become a dispute between the president and a man who until a few weeks ago sat in his government. On August 23, 2026, Volodymyr Zelensky rejected the request to return to the polls while the war continues: a vote under Russian bombs, he argued, would split the country apart.

“Elections under bombs would split the country apart. They would be a tsunami” — Volodymyr Zelensky, President of Ukraine

The presidential position responds to a specific initiative. On Tuesday, August 18, Mykhailo Fedorov, the former Defence Minister, released a video message calling for a return to the polls despite the conflict, arguing that the suspension of voting hands Russia a veto power over Ukraine’s democratic life: “Democracy cannot be held hostage by Russia,” he stated according to the DIRE agency.

Two arguments that never meet

The two lines of reasoning almost never touch. Zelensky speaks of material conditions: a country under attack, millions of voters displaced or unreachable, an electoral organisation that would itself become a target. Fedorov speaks of legitimacy: the longer the mandate remains suspended, the further power drifts from the verification of the vote.

The institutional fact is that elections in Ukraine have remained suspended since the imposition of martial law and that Zelensky’s five-year term formally ended in May 2024. This is the pivot of the entire discussion: neither side disputes it, yet each draws opposite conclusions from it.

To the call for elections Fedorov added, in a reply to the BBC, a political accusation: the president, he said, has questions to answer regarding corruption within his government. Zelensky responded that the heads of the anti-corruption agencies have not raised any questions with him. These are two statements, not two established facts: we record them as opposing declarations, since that is what they remain until a formal act intervenes that none of the available sources document.

The precedent of the dismissal

The political weight of the initiative also depends on who is promoting it. Fedorov was removed from the post of Defence Minister on July 15, 2026. Ukraine’s Parliament then appointed Yevhenii Khmara in his place, the fifth holder of the ministry since the invasion began. Five Defence Ministers succeeding one another over the course of the same conflict are an indicator of instability in the political chain running the military effort, and they place the call for elections within an already open internal conflict, not outside it.

This neither takes away from nor adds to the merits of the argument over the polls, but it explains why the presidential reply came within hours and was entrusted to an image: the tsunami. Zelensky is not disputing the expiry of the mandate, he is disputing the practical effect of an election campaign in a country under bombardment.

What we do not know

No date has been indicated by the government, according to available sources, for the end of the suspension of voting, nor is there a parliamentary proposal setting minimum security conditions for calling elections. We do not know how much support Fedorov’s position has within Ukraine’s political forces: the record shows his video message and his interview, not an organised front. We do not know whether other figures from the executive or the opposition have taken a position since August 23.

The calendar remains that of a country under martial law: no election date set, a president whose formal mandate expired more than two years ago, a Defence Ministry whose current head is the fifth since the invasion began. The next verifiable step will be an act by Parliament or the electoral commission, not another statement.

Sources: ANSA; Il Fatto Quotidiano; Agenzia DIRE; Il Sole 24 Ore, English edition.