Et tu, Fedorov? The betrayal of Volodymyr Zelensky.

No, it was not the Ides of March. But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky could be forgiven if Aug. 18 felt like it.

Mykhailo Fedorov, the country’s former defense minister and a longtime political ally of Zelensky, called for a legal way to be found for Ukraine to hold wartime elections , even though the nation’s constitution forbids it.

Fedorov’s symbolic knife, delivered via a post on his newly created YouTube account, was aimed straight at Zelensky’s back. Zelensky had sacked Fedorov over a leadership dispute with the now departed Col. Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi. He had been the commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s military.

Fedorov’s abrupt firing led to widespread protests in support of the 35-year-old, who had been widely credited with Ukraine’s turnaround on the battlefield and for expanding and accelerating the fight deep inside Russia , which is ravaging its oil and gas sector and its military supply chain while isolating Russian forces in occupied Crimea.

In making his bombshell case for wartime elections, Fedorov argued, “We must not let [Russian President Vladimir] Putin decide when Ukrainians can choose their government.” To say the least, that is a straw man argument.

Putin is not stopping Ukrainians from voting. Ukraine’s constitution is the obstacle. Article 83 clearly states that if the term of the parliament while martial law is in effect, then the parliament’s powers are automatically extended until after martial law is ended.

The Ukrainian constitution also prohibits constitutional amendments during periods of martial law. So the only way to hold an election would be for Zelensky to end martial law — which would be foolhardy, given a state of war exists between Russia and Ukraine.

Fedorov’s proposal is also impractical. Even if a legal workaround could be found for the Ukrainian constitution, it would be virtually impossible to hold a safe, free, and fair election while the entire country is under daily Russian ballistic missile and drone attacks.

For one thing, more than 8,000 polling stations, representing one-quarter of the total, are either located in Russian-occupied Ukraine or on the front lines. Between 4 and 5 million Ukrainian citizens are caught behind Russian enemy lines. Would Fedorov simply disenfranchise them?

Ongoing air raids could wreak havoc on all the other polling stations. And at any given time, there are nearly 1 million voters serving on the frontlines in the Donbas and across southern Ukraine opposite the Crimean Peninsula. As many as 7.5 million Ukrainians are also living abroad now as refugees.

But the biggest problem is that Fedorov’s gambit risks aiding Putin , who has long claimed that Zelensky is an illegitimate president. Moscow has said repeatedly that new elections in Ukraine are a precondition for any comprehensive peace settlement or treaty between Russia and Ukraine.

Putin knows that Zelensky is his most formidable foe, Churchillian in his stature. That is why Putin has tried so hard to get rid of him, both through calls for new elections and repeated assassination attempts .

Wittingly or not, Fedorov is also strengthening the hand of Vice President JD Vance, whose strong dislike of Zelensky is widely known. Vance has frequently criticized Ukraine’s approach to its war of self-defense against Russia. In a February 2025 meeting in the Oval Office, Vance famously accused Zelensky of ingratitude toward the U.S.

Only last week, Vance succeeded in pressuring Zelensky to lay off with drone strikes against Russian oil tankers, in order to help stabilize global oil prices and protect U.S. companies. Zelensky likely agreed only in order to ensure that Ukraine remains on track to receive a license to produce Patriot missile interceptors.

By effectively doing Vance’s bidding, Fedorov is also foolishly undermining the improvement in personal relations between Zelensky and President Trump. In early July, during a NATO meeting in Ankara, Turkey, Trump praised Zelensky and announced that he supports Ukraine getting the Patriot license.

Fedorov’s timing is clear enough. Zelensky’s poll numbers are not good. In hypothetical match-ups , he is running neck-and-neck with Fedorov and Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, the former commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Notably, Zelensky would be expected to lose a hypothetical runoff against either man.

That is why this looks and feels like an opportunistic “Et tu, Brute?” moment, straight out of William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar.

Yet, this time it might have a very different ending. Early reaction in Kyiv — and it could still change — is that Fedorov overplayed his hand, that his ambition and lack of patience perhaps got the better of him.

Fedorov must back down and close ranks. Ukraine continues to be under daily heavy ballistic missile and drone attack by Russia. The war hangs in the balance. The last thing Ukraine needs ahead of winter is a dead or badly wounded Caesar.

Mark Toth writes on national security and foreign policy. Col. (Ret.) Jonathan Sweet served 30 years as a military intelligence officer and led the U.S. European Command Intelligence Engagement Division from 2012 to 2014. They are the cofounders of INTREP360 and the INTREP360 Intelligence Report on Substack.