President Trump blames President Zelensky for starting war with Russia. The US president increased pressure on Ukraine to hold elections.
Trump’s call for elections comes nine months after the official end of President Zelensky’s term in office. It was extended indefinitely under Ukraine’s declaration of martial law following the 2022 Russian invasion. Zelensky promised that elections would be held as soon as the conflict ends.
There has been almost no public outcry over the lack of elections with broad agreement that holding them would be logistically impossible during war time. As many as a million Ukrainians are engaged in fighting away from home, while millions more are displaced internally and abroad as refugees.
Six million Ukrainians currently live under Russian occupation in areas Moscow claims to have annexed and where it held unrecognized elections of its own in 2023. Russia has used the suspension of elections in Ukraine to argue that Zelensky is not the country’s legitimate leader.
While Zelensky’s popularity has faded from his 90 per cent approval ratings in the early days of the war, it still hovers around 50 per cent and is nowhere near as low as Trump’s single digit claim. Trump’s attacks on Zelensky over the last few days have seen Ukrainians rally behind him.
