President Volodymyr Zelensky has signalled willingness to stage presidential and parliamentary elections within two to three months if Western allies can guarantee physical security for voters and polling stations, yet the country remains under martial law enacted on the first day of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, a legal barrier that explicitly forbids any nationwide vote until the provision is formally lifted by parliament.

Active hostilities rage along a 1,200-kilometre front stretching from Kharkiv to Kherson, while Russian drones, cruise missiles, and ballistic strikes regularly target cities hundreds of kilometres from the battlefield, systematically destroying power grids and leaving millions without reliable electricity for days. Analysts warn that even a temporary air ceasefire would be the absolute minimum precondition, followed by a six-month legislative sprint to create entirely new election laws, procedures, and safeguards against Russian interference.

Over 4.3 million Ukrainian refugees hold temporary protection status across the European Union, four million citizens are registered as internally displaced within Ukraine, approximately one million serve in the armed forces, and an estimated 4.5 million adults remain trapped in Russian-occupied territories covering 19 percent of the country, presenting logistical obstacles of historic scale: voter lists are outdated, millions lack current registration addresses, and organising secure voting for soldiers on the frontline would require unprecedented legal and technical innovations.

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The State Register of Voters must be rebuilt from the ground up, hundreds of secure polling stations would need to be established inside foreign embassies and consulates across Europe, mobile ballot boxes would have to reach trenches and bunkers, and robust cyber-defences erected to prevent Moscow from discrediting results, all while maintaining secrecy and fairness under constant bombardment.

Despite a decline from early-war approval ratings near 90 percent to the mid-50s amid corruption scandals and battlefield fatigue, repeated polls by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology and other agencies confirm Zelensky remains the overwhelming favourite, with only former armed forces commander-in-chief Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, now ambassador to Britain, consistently polling as a credible challenger, though he has repeatedly stated that politics must wait until victory is secured.

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