Zelensky says wartime election would ‘destroy’ Ukraine

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Sunday that holding elections amid Russia’s war with Ukraine would “destroy” the country.

“I believe that ​if we want to destroy the country, then we can move towards elections ​during this kind of war,” Zelensky told reporters.

The president said elections “in general pose major risks,” noting that holding an election “right now would be a tsunami for the state, one that would divide Ukraine,” Politico reported .

“That’s why my strategy is to steer the country toward an ending of the war and to preserve an ⁠independent ​and sovereign state,” he added.

Ukrainian law bars the country from holding elections during wartime.

Polling released by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology earlier this month found that 57 percent of Ukrainians want to hold elections after the war ends.

Zelensky’s remarks come after ousted former Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov called for a wartime poll in an address last week, NBC News reported. Zelensky said he thought some of Fedorov’s actions were misguided.

“I really had and still have a very positive attitude toward Mykhailo,” the president said. “We have been through a lot together. But I believe that he himself goes, or is pushed, into the wrong things.”

He appeared to link Fedorov to a meeting involving Starlink and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, where Fedorov told Zelensky that SpaceX agreed to have Ukraine use Starlink on Russian territory. Zelensky raised this with President Trump and later told him that Musk rejected the proposal, accusing him of having misled Trump.

Zelensky said that this incident was among the reasons behind “some of the steps” that led to Fedorov no longer being in his position.

Fedorov has emerged as a rival to Zelensky, telling Ukrainians Tuesday that the “people cannot endlessly live in a state where they do not understand why certain decisions are made,” Politico reported.

The former minister doubled down on his address during a Sunday interview with the BBC . He told the outlet that Zelensky has “questions to answer” about corruption within the government. Fedorov also talked about Ukrainian elections, noting that “democracy should not be the hostage of” Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“If I cannot share my ideas and be open about them with my own society, then what are we fighting for?” he told the broadcaster.

Zelensky was first elected in 2019, when he defeated incumbent President Petro Poroshenko in a landslide victory. He was a comedian and television personality before entering politics.

He said last December that Ukraine was ready for elections after Trump had said the same thing.

“Since this question is raised today by the president of the United States of America, our partners, I will answer very briefly,” Zelensky told U.S. reporters at the time after a phone call with Trump. “Look, I am ready for elections. … I personally have the will and readiness to do this.”