Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is “weighing the pros and cons” of a presidential election in 2024, despite the war and numerous “practical challenges.” His Foreign Minister Dmytro Kouleba announced this today via video conference at the World Policy Conference in the United Arab Emirates. “It’s not that I don’t want to hold elections, but holding them under the current circumstances would require unprecedented work and would require overcoming unprecedented challenges,” he added. Before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began in 2022, presidential elections were scheduled for 2024. But martial law, which has been in effect since the beginning of the war, is hindering the holding of the elections. At the beginning of September, Zelensky had already declared that he was “ready” to organize elections in his war-torn country “if the people need it.” “It’s not about democracy,” it’s “just about security,” he assured, also emphasizing that there are “many” problems to solve. These include the coordination of soldiers fighting in the trenches or the arrival of international observers in a war zone, he explained. A list to which Kouleba also added organizing voting for millions of Ukrainians abroad and the risk that polling stations in Ukraine could become “perfect targets for Russian missiles and drones.”
