Premature elections in Ukraine would only play into Putin’s hands

After the public falling out between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky last Friday, some in the U.S. are renewing calls for Ukraine to hold elections, even as it fights off Russia’s unprovoked invasion.

Holding elections before the war ends would be unwise. In addition to practical challenges, like counting refugee votes and protecting polling stations, it could imperil both Ukraine’s security and Trump’s chances of brokering a good peace deal.

This issue took center stage in mid-February amid a quarrel in which Trump labeled his Ukrainian counterpart a “dictator without elections.” But the Trump administration’s demand that Ukraine hold elections — reportedly now officially “American policy,” according to Vice President JD Vance — predates that spat. 

Trump’s envoy for Ukraine, retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, publicly called for elections in early February. Administration officials have reportedly mulled a plan to push Ukraine to hold elections as part of an initial cease-fire, followed by negotiations for a long-term peace deal. Some members of Congress have echoed the administration’s call for elections. 

Elected in 2019, Zelensky’s term was originally supposed to end last May. But after Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022, Kyiv imposed martial law, which Ukraine’s parliament has voted 14 times to extend, most recently last month with zero “nays.” 

One effect of these extensions is to keep Zelensky in office, because elections are not allowed during periods of martial law. Sensibly, U.S. allies have quickly defended Zelensky against Trump’s broadside, with London saying it’s “perfectly reasonable to suspend elections during wartime as the [United Kingdom] did during World War II.” 

Although Kyiv’s lawmakers widely support postponing elections, the Kremlin is insisting that Ukrainians must go to the polls. Putin has repeatedly offered a pseudo-legal analysis, falsely contending that Zelensky is now illegitimate under Ukraine’s constitution.

Moscow argues that while Zelensky could engage in preliminary negotiations, he lacks the authority to sign a final deal, making elections a prerequisite to peace. Never mind that Russia itself doesn’t hold free and fair elections. 

Putin likely sees elections as a way to replace the Ukrainian president with a more pliable alternative. Russia has complemented its public arguments with covert information operations aimed at discrediting Zelensky. And a torrent of misleading or false assertions from the likes of Elon Musk and Tucker Carlson have achieved far more than Moscow ever could on its own. 

Ukraine cherishes its democracy and independence. That’s why hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians flooded the streets during the country’s Euromaidan protests and Revolution of Dignity in 2013 and 2014. And it’s why so many have given their lives to stave off Russia’s two subsequent invasions.

However, there is broad consensus in Ukraine against holding elections before the war ends. Zelensky and opposition leaders alike point to practical challenges inhibiting secure and fully representative elections.

Campaign rallies, polling stations, election workers and foreign observers would be at risk from Russian aerial bombardment. That sort of threat wasn’t a factor when America held elections during the Civil War and World War II.

Then there’s the daunting task of counting votes cast by the roughly 11 million Ukrainian refugees living abroad or internally displaced, not to mention citizens serving at the front, trapped in occupied territory, or subsisting in decimated frontline towns.

Ukrainian officials and activists estimate that once martial law is lifted, preparations for an election will likely take at least six months and perhaps a year. Among other things, Ukraine, which previously conducted voting exclusively in person, will have to construct a secure system to reach displaced citizens. A poorly handled election could do more to harm than to help political legitimacy.

There are also strategic reasons.

“If we suspend martial law, we will lose the army,” Zelensky has warned, as troops “will return home and will have every right to return home.” Military-age men and money would flee the country. Kyiv’s ability to mobilize defense-industrial production would diminish.

And it was Ukraine’s top opposition leader who recently cautioned that the return of electoral politics would undermine unity, while the lifting of martial law would also give Russia’s intelligence services and proxies would greater latitude to conduct subversion operations.  

Ukraine’s ability to resist Russian aggression would crumble along with its negotiating leverage. Trump’s diplomatic efforts, in turn, would likely go up in smoke, as Putin would grow even less willing to abandon his maximalist demands. If Russia emerges victorious despite all the West’s efforts to date, it could embolden not only Moscow but Beijing as well. 

Ukraine will hold elections as soon as it’s safe to do so. As Zelensky recently analogized, “You don’t have dinner in the morning … We can’t have dinner [yet], because we need to live until the evening.” 

A cease-fire alone wouldn’t be a sufficient guarantee, as members of the parliament’s defense committee have noted. Ukraine would be left vulnerable in the likely event that Russia violates the ceasefire and resumes offensive operations.  

For now, of course, the debate over elections takes a backseat to the first-order matter of getting U.S.-Ukraine relations back on track. If Washington truly wants to end the war and help Ukraine preserve its freedom, it must find a way to move forward with Kyiv. It should then focus on establishing greater negotiating leverage. 

That means continuing military assistance as well as tightening sanctions on Russia’s economy to shorten the amount of time it can sustain the war. 

John Hardie is the deputy director of the Russia Program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.