Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said holding elections in Ukraine during wartime would risk splitting the country at a time when Russia is amassing ballistic missiles and considering whether to mobilise an extra 300,000 soldiers. The Ukrainian president, responding for the first time to a demand made by the sacked former defence minister Mykhailo Fedorov, sharply criticised an idea that he said was impractical given Russia appeared to have no interest in a ceasefire. Elections right now are a tsunami for the state that will split Ukraine,” he said, adding that his plan was to end the war and preserve Ukraine as an independent state.
Elections have been suspended in Ukraine since martial law was imposed at the start of the full-scale invasion by Russia. Zelenskyy’s five-year term ended in May 2024 but there had been little desire in Ukraine to hold a contest while the war continued. That shifted when Fedorov, a popular minister who had been dismissed by Zelenskyy a month earlier, called for a fresh contest.
It was the most open challenge to Zelenskyy’s authority from inside Ukraine since start of the Russian invasion. Zelenskyy said, according to a transcript from the briefing, that if Ukraine’s allies were to establish “specific conditions” under which we could safely, legitimately and democratically hold elections in Ukraine, he would support them. It would require “the participation of the military, in front-line territories, abroad, where millions of our citizens have gone, fleeing the war” and a poll would have to take place safely “without strikes and shelling”.
Fedorov, he said, had moved from his post because had had overreached, trying to cover functions belonging to the military. He was offered four alternative jobs in the government but declined all four, the president added. Russia had a stockpile of 600-630 high speed ballistic missiles, its most potent type of weapon, and was trying to build a little more than 100 more a month in the run-up to winter, Zelenskyy said.
Its maximum production capacity was 1,300 a year, he added. Ballistic missiles have been used to bomb Ukrainian infrastructure and warehouses and to attack the capital, causing increased civilian casualties. There is a shortage of US-made Patriot interceptors, the only weapon that can effectively counter them.
The request from our air force is 360,” Zelenskyy said. He acknowledged this was difficult given that only about 600 of the most capable PAC-3 interceptor missiles were made a year. He said he had reached an agreement with France on at least one SAMP/T air-defence system this year, and with Germany on the supply of about 600 PAC-2 and PAC-3 interceptors in 2027--28.
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