Kyiv dropped autumn election plan after Zaluzhnyi and Budanov refused to step aside
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Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Valerii Zaluzhnyi at the meeting, Jan. 15, 2026 (Photo: Zelenskiy Official / Telegram)
Plans to stage autumn wartime elections were scrapped after Valerii Zaluzhnyi and Kyrylo Budanov refused to sit out the race, NV sister outlet Ukrainska Pravda wrote on Sept. 21.
Former Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov was among an exclusive inner circle of six officials who gathered with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at a secured state residence outside Kyiv to weigh the feasibility of holding wartime presidential and parliamentary elections in the autumn.
Formally, Fedorov remained a member of Zelenskyy’s closest decision-making cadre until the summer of 2026. At the confidential dacha summit in mid-June, discussions centered heavily on political strategy, including identifying which prominent generals needed to be persuaded against entering the political arena.
"Fedorov himself pointed out to Zelenskyy that a window of opportunity for reelection opened amid major long-range strikes against Moscow, alongside positive operational news from Crimea and Donbas," UP reported.
However, the initiative to hold autumn elections was ultimately abandoned when Ukraine's Ambassador to the United Kingdom and former Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces Valerii Zaluzhnyi, alongside Presidential Office head Kyrylo Budanov, declined requests to commit to not running.
Fedorov maintains that executing democratic elections prior to the conclusion of the war remains entirely feasible — proposing a presidential contest first, followed by parliamentary elections.
As Fedorov recounted to UP, he initially presented the electoral roadmap directly to the president in June: "Zelenskyy was open to it, but because Zaluzhnyi would have run, he refused," the former defense minister stated.
Fedorov added that he sought to reframe the stakes for the president at their private discussions: "I told him, 'We need to hold elections, because then you will stop obsessing over them and start thinking about your legacy and historical monument.' He asked me: 'What is your personal angle in this?' I answered: 'Winning the war.'"
Fedorov’s Public Pivot and Bankova’s Rebuttal
On the evening of Aug. 18, Fedorov released a video address on his YouTube channel publicly advocating for wartime elections. He argued that Moscow has no right to dictate when Ukrainian citizens can exercise their democratic franchise and called for an open public debate regarding the future of the nation's governance.
The Guardian characterized Fedorov's public stance as "the most direct political challenge to Volodymyr Zelenskyy during the years of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine."
On Aug. 19, Presidential Communications Adviser Dmytro Lytvyn pushed back, stating that relentless Russian missile barrages and drone saturation strikes provide a definitive, self-evident answer to why organizing a nationwide ballot during active warfare is physically impossible.
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