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Why Kyiv ruled out elections under martial law
Summary
A look back at 3 January 2025, when Ukraine's president rejected a vote even if Moscow made it a condition for talks.
Could Russia make a Ukrainian presidential election a price of negotiations? On 3 January 2025, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukraine's president, answered plainly: the country would not hold presidential elections while it remained under martial law, even if Russia set an election as a pre-condition for talks.
The position rested on law rather than only on politics. Presidential elections had been scheduled for March or April 2024, but martial law has been in force since 24 February 2022, following the full-scale Russian invasion, and Ukrainian law does not allow such a vote while it applies. Parliament has extended martial law in 90-day intervals. Later, it was extended for the 20th time, until 31 October 2026. Ukrainian presidential elections determine who serves as president for the next five years.
A busy start to the year
The statement came at the end of a crowded opening few days of 2025 for Ukraine and its neighbours. On 1 January, Ukraine became a state party to the International Criminal Court. The same day, Russia's Gazprom halted gas supplies to Moldova and to the self-proclaimed Transnistrian Republic, citing alleged non-compliance with payment obligations. Also on 1 January, Bulgaria and Romania completed their accession to the Schengen Area and lifted land border controls.
On 2 January, Zelenskyy said Ukraine would pledge support to the Syrian transitional government.
A Baltic Sea case
On 3 January, a district court in Helsinki, Finland, also denied a request to release the impounded oil tanker Eagle S. The vessel was suspected of damaging the Estlink 2 submarine power cable and of carrying sanctioned Russian oil.
What the statement settled
The election remark closed off one possible route for Russian demands in any future talks, at least as far as Kyiv's stated position went. It tied any vote to the lifting of martial law, and so to the conditions that law was introduced to address. The reasoning was the one Ukrainian law itself sets out: no presidential election while martial law is in effect.
