Fedorov's wartime election demand splits Kyiv as constitutional barriers hold firm

A single YouTube address on Tuesday night was enough to fracture the fragile unity of Ukrainian politics. Mykhailo Fedorov, ousted as defence minister barely four weeks earlier, demanded that Kyiv find a "legal, safe, and realistic mechanism" to hold presidential and parliamentary elections while Russian missiles still fall. The response from the Verkhovna Rada was swift, cross-party and almost uniformly negative.

Constitutional wall and practical impossibility

Martial law, imposed within hours of the full-scale invasion in February 2022, does more than suspend elections. It also forbids any amendment to the constitution while it remains in effect. That single provision makes Fedorov's request legally circular: to enable a vote, parliament would first need to change the basic law, which martial law explicitly prohibits. Kira Rudik, who leads the liberal Holos faction, put it bluntly: "With all due respect to Mykhailo Fedorov, the constitution did not change because of his dismissal."

Even if the constitutional barrier vanished overnight, the logistical hurdles are staggering. Roughly six million Ukrainians remain abroad as refugees, another several million are internally displaced, and roughly 18% of the country's internationally recognised territory sits under Russian occupation. Polling stations in front-line regions would operate under drone and artillery fire. Moscow has a documented history of interfering in foreign ballots, from the 2016 US election to the 2024 Moldovan presidential runoff. Yaroslav Zhelezniak, a senior member of the parliament's finance committee, dismissed the entire proposition in two words on his Telegram channel: "no and no." He added that the idea is "unrealistic, at least because of the constitution."

The dismissal that lit the fuse

Fedorov's seven months at the defence ministry had won him a reputation for technological improvisation, drone procurement, battlefield IT integration, and a direct line to Silicon Valley figures including Elon Musk. His removal in mid-July triggered protests in Kyiv and other cities, the largest domestic demonstrations since the invasion began. The former minister made no secret of his anger. In Tuesday's address he framed the election demand as a defence of sovereignty: "If the war drags on for another year, two, or three, could Russia effectively gain the right to determine when Ukrainians can once again choose their own government? I am convinced it cannot. Democracy cannot be held hostage by Russia."

The timing was deliberate. On the same evening, investigators from the National Anti-Corruption Bureau executed fresh searches at the presidential office under Operation Forrest Gump, a widening probe into alleged embezzlement of defence procurement funds. The raids fed a narrative that Fedorov's allies have pushed for weeks: that his firing was less about performance than about his refusal to tolerate corruption networks close to the presidential administration.

Corrosion of trust changes the calculus

Roman Lozynskyi, another Holos deputy, captured the shifting mood in a Facebook post addressed directly to Zelenskyy. He acknowledged that most Ukrainians still understand elections during war "play into the enemy's hands" and would become "a field for fakes and manipulation." But he warned that the corruption scandals have created a dangerous equivalence in the public mind. "Now people no longer know what is worse: corruption and lies without elections, or trying to reset the country by taking the risk of holding elections during the war. And that is a catastrophe."

That sentiment is new. Until recently, the overwhelming majority of Ukrainians polled by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology opposed wartime voting. The latest surveys, conducted before this week's events, showed opposition softening from the high 70s to the low 60s, still a majority, but no longer a consensus. The presidential office has watched those numbers with growing unease.

A crack in the anti-election front

Fedorov is not entirely isolated. Dmytro Kuleba, who served as foreign minister until September 2024 and was long considered one of Zelenskyy's closest confidants, broke ranks on Tuesday night. Speaking to Interfax Ukraine, he argued that "elections after war will not be more civilised than during." His reasoning was pragmatic: "We don't know when it will end. What if it lasts for another three years? We will be living under the political model that was formed in 2019, which is already emotionally exhausted. There is a demand among people for new members of parliament."

Kuleba's intervention matters because he carries weight in Western capitals. His endorsement gives the election argument a legitimacy it lacked when voiced only by Fedorov, whose motives opponents portray as personal grievance. It also signals that the debate has migrated from the fringes into the mainstream of the political class that ran the country until recently.

External pressure and the Trump factor

The White House has not been a passive observer. Since returning to office in January 2025, Donald Trump's administration has pressed Kyiv to demonstrate democratic continuity, framing elections as a condition for sustained military aid. Zelenskyy has not categorically refused. In a February press conference he said wartime voting would require "substantial international support, including from the US and the EU, to ensure security and voting rights for Ukrainians at home and abroad." That formulation left the door ajar while setting a bar that allies have so far shown no willingness to clear.

European capitals are divided. Poland and the Baltic states privately argue that any election under occupation and bombardment would lack credibility and hand Moscow a propaganda victory. France and Germany have been more cautious, emphasising that the decision belongs to Kyiv but warning that EU observation missions would require security guarantees no one can currently provide. A senior EU official, speaking on condition of anonymity, described the prospect of deploying observers to a country under active missile attack as "legally and operationally unprecedented."

The missing legal framework

Even if political will materialised, Ukraine lacks the legislative machinery. The election law assumes peacetime conditions: voter registers updated annually, polling stations in every precinct, ballot transport secured by police, observers accredited weeks in advance. Adapting that framework for war would require parliamentary majorities that do not exist. European Solidarity, Batkivshchyna and Holos, together commanding well over a third of the Rada, have all declared opposition. The ruling Servant of the People faction has not whipped its members, but few deputies are willing to break publicly with the president on a national security issue.

There is also the question of the electorate. The 2019 presidential election saw 30 million eligible voters. Today, the Central Election Commission cannot say how many of them are reachable, alive, or in Ukrainian-controlled territory. Any vote would inevitably exclude millions of citizens by circumstance, not law, a constitutional vulnerability the Constitutional Court would almost certainly strike down.

What happens next

The immediate fight is over narrative. Fedorov's team is preparing a second video, expected this week, outlining a specific legislative roadmap: a temporary suspension of martial law's election ban via a constitutional majority vote, coupled with an international security guarantee treaty. Legal scholars at Kyiv-Mohyla Academy have already drafted a 40-page opinion arguing the move would violate Article 157 of the constitution, which entrenches the unamendability of certain provisions during martial law. The Constitutional Court has been asked for an expedited ruling, though no deadline has been set.