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PRESIDENT Zelensky has pledged to hold elections within three months if Ukraine gets robust security guarantees.
The Ukrainian leader’s comments came shortly after Donald Trump slammed the Ukrainian leadership for “using war” to avoid elections and said the country was almost “not a democracy anymore”.
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Elections in Ukraine have been suspended after martial rule was imposed following Russia’s invasion – as the constitution demands.
Zelensky said on Tuesday: “I am ready for the elections.”
He added that he was asking lawmakers to prepare suggestions for how the system could be “amended” to allow elections during wartime.
However, Zelensky said that security must be ensured before any vote could happen – and asked the US to help secure it.
He said: “I am now asking, I declare this openly, for the United States of America to help me, possibly together with European colleagues, to ensure security for holding elections.
“And then in the next 60-90 days Ukraine will be ready to hold an election.”
Vladimir Putin has long pushed for elections to sow the idea that Ukraine’s government is illegitimate and has suggested a temporary administration should take over.
He has disguised these attempts to topple Zelensky as peace efforts, suggesting a transitional government could offer an off-ramp from the fighting.
Trump seemed to have fallen in line behind Putin’s calls for Zelensky to go when he told Politico on Monday: “I think it’s time. I think it’s an important time to hold an election.
“They’re using war not to hold an election, but, uh, I would think the Ukrainian people would, should have that choice.
“Maybe Zelensky would win. I don’t know who would win. But they haven’t had an election in a long time.
“They talk about a democracy, but it gets to a point where it’s not a democracy anymore.”
Elections are forbidden by law in Ukraine during wartime – and Zelensky dismissed suggestions he was clinging to power as “totally inadequate”.
Meanwhile, Zelensky was due to present a fresh peace plan to Donald Trump as early as Tuesday, following Monday’s talks with his European allies in London.
The Ukrainian again rejected handing land to Putin and also made a plea to his allies for the cash needed to buy American weapons.
Zelensky was at 10 Downing Street to meet Keir Starmer and the leaders of France and Germany on Monday, who rallied around him in the face of Trump’s shaky support.
They gathered amid American efforts to hurry a peace deal over the line – which have reached a “critical stage”, according to Starmer.
No 10 repeated calls for a “just and lasting peace… which includes robust security guarantees”.
After the US and Russia produced a 28-point peace deal last month, European leaders swiftly set to work crafting a more balanced counter proposal.
Talks have also been ongoing between the US and Ukraine in a bid to agree on a revised version – which was reportedly presented to Putin last week.
On Sunday, Trump accused Zelensky of not having even read the latest version of the text, which has been kept tightly under wraps, though Ukrainian officials denied this.
The President added that he viewed Zelensky as the main obstacle to securing a peace deal.
Trump said: “Russia is, I believe, fine with it, but I’m not sure that Zelensky’s fine with it. His people love it, but he hasn’t read it.”
After talks with Starmer, Emmanuel Macron and Friedrich Merz, Zelensky confirmed they had been working on a further update to the 20-point proposal.
He said the revision could be ready for delivery to Trump as early as Tuesday evening.
On Sunday, the White House said a peace deal was “really close” and was stuck on just two points: the fate of the Ukraine’s Donbas region and Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.
Special Envoy Keith Kellog said: “If we get those two issues settled, I think the rest of the things will work out fairly well.”
Zelensky too signalled the demands for Ukraine to hand over land to Russia, as featured in the initial proposition, remained a problem.
He said on Monday: “There are visions of the US, Russia and Ukraine – and we don’t have a unified view on Donbas.
“There is one question I, and all Ukrainians, want to get an answer to: if Russia again starts the war, what will our partners do?”
And he later made clear that land concessions would not feature in the proposition eventually handed over.
He said: “Do we envision ceding territories? We have no legal right to do so, under Ukrainian law, our constitution and international law. And we don’t have any moral right either.
“Russia is insisting that we give up territories, but we don’t want to cede anything. We are fighting for that, as you well know.
“There are difficult problems concerning the territories and so far there has been no compromise.”
Zelensky previously said the sides were waiting for in-person talks with Trump to tackle the thorny issue for security reasons.
He added that any changes to Ukraine’s borders would require a public referrendum.
Following his London meetings, Zelensky travelled to Brussels for talks with Nato chief Mark Rutte and European Commission boss Ursula von der Leyen – and then on to Italy to meet the Pope and Prime Minister Georgia Meloni.
Zelensky said that Ukrainian and European officials “are going to work on these 20 points” received from the US side in order to produce a counter proposal.
Trump later shared an article branding Europeans as “impotent”.
Reposting a New York Post opinion piece onto Truth Social, he picked out the headline: “Impotent Europeans can only fume as Trump rightly sidelines them from Ukraine deal”.
Zelensky also revealed on Monday that Ukraine is short by around £600million of the money needed to buy the US weapons it had planned to purchase this year.
He reiterated that, by next year, Ukraine would need about $11.3billion for the PURL program – which involves purchases of U.S. weapons with European money.
UK officials say the plan to unlock £8billion worth of sovereign Kremlin assets is on the cusp of success.
The EU may also budge on their £120billion of Russian assets after an attempt was blocked by Belgium over its fears of legal risks.
A breakthrough is hoped for after Mr Zelensky said he “can’t manage” without EU and US support.
After the Downing Street talks, a No 10 spokesperson said: “This is the furthest we’ve got in four years, and we welcome the fact that these talks are continuing at every level.
“It isn’t a straight line between conflict and peace.”
He added that intensive work will continue in the coming days, although there are still outstanding issues.
Meanwhile, the city of Sumy in north-western Ukraine was plunged into darkness after a Russian drone attack.
More than a dozen drones hit key power infrastructure, but no deaths were reported.
English (US) · 