Zelenskyy says wartime elections could ‘destroy’ Ukraine

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has rejected his ex-defence chief’s calls for a wartime election, calling the prospect a “huge risk” amid the more than four-year war with Russia.

Ukrainian law bans elections during wartime, a measure that had gone unchallenged until former Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov made the first public demand for a vote earlier this week.

Zelenskyy rejected the call during a wide-ranging briefing with reporters on Saturday.

“I believe that in a war like this, elections as such are a huge risk. Elections right now are a tsunami for the country that will split Ukraine,” the president said in comments published on Sunday.

“If we want to destroy the country, then we can move in the direction of elections during these times of war,” he added.

The 35-year-old Fedorov – a popular figure in Ukraine – held his post for just six months until Zelenskyy fired him in July, prompting protests across the country.

On Tuesday, he posted an explosive nine-minute video on YouTube claiming that Ukraine’s democracy “cannot be held hostage by Russia”.

“Can Russia actually be entitled to define when Ukrainians can elect their authorities next time? I’m sure it’s not,” he said, adding that Kyiv faces a “systemic crisis of governance”.

Experts have told Al Jazeera, however, that any wartime election would be practically impossible amid logistical and safety challenges, a reality that most Ukrainians agree with.

- AlJazeera