Kyiv, Ukraine – Echoing the Kremlin, United States President Donald Trump is demanding that national elections be held in Ukraine as part of any peace deal while referring to the Ukrainian president as a “dictator”.
“That’s not a Russia thing. That’s something coming from me and coming from many other countries also,” Trump told reporters on Tuesday while falsely saying Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has a 4 percent approval rating.
Moscow has said Zelenskyy’s five-year term was supposed to end in May and, therefore, he does not have the legal authority to sign a peace deal.
Martial law, which banned wartime elections, was declared in the former Soviet republic after Russia’s full-scale invasion of the East European nation nearly three years ago.
Zelenskyy hit back on Wednesday against Trump’s comments, saying: “If someone wants to replace me right away, it’s not possible right away.”
“If we are talking about 4 percent, then we’ve seen this disinformation. We understand that it comes from Russia, and we have evidence,” he said in televised remarks.
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As of the first half of February, according to a survey by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, 57 percent of Ukrainians trust Zelenskyy as their president.
Spreading a pro-Russia ‘illusion’
Kyiv-based analyst Aleksey Kushch said Moscow’s motives for insisting on elections in Ukraine have less to do with championing the election rights of the Ukrainian people and more to do with control.
The Kremlin wants Ukraine to have “a government that will be more obedient, that will sign the [peace] deals the US will have drafted with Russia,” Kushch told Al Jazeera.
Another Kyiv-based analyst, Vyacheslav Likhachyov, said Putin is tying elections to the peace deal to spread the “illusion” that most Ukrainians are pro-Russian.
“Perhaps [Putin] really thinks that a pro-Russian candidate may win in Ukraine to deliver the nation to the Kremlin on a platter,” he told Al Jazeera, adding that Russia also hopes to create divides within Ukraine.
Russia will “benefit from the unavoidable political polemics that go hand in hand with compromising leaks and discussions about who’s to blame for our problems”, Likhachyov said.
Putin also personally dislikes Zelenskyy and “would emotionally prefer to deal with somebody else, anybody else”, he said, adding that Trump simply views the Ukrainian leader as an obstacle.
“Zelenskyy also irks him emotionally, and any other Ukrainian official ready to submit Ukraine to Putin on his own accord would suit Trump way more,” he said.
Voting not viable
Regardless of the true motives of Putin and Trump, it is unlikely the more than 6 million Ukrainians living in Russia-controlled areas could participate in elections due to conditions there.
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In March, the United Nations accused Russia of creating a “climate of fear” in occupied eastern Ukraine, detailing instances of torture and arbitrary detentions and the suppression of Ukrainian identity and culture.
Also, the millions of Ukrainian refugees who are spread out across the globe would face logistical problems reaching Ukrainian embassies and consulates.
Some, like Hanna Glushko have relocated to small European towns or villages for cheaper rent and groceries. Glushko fled the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv in 2022 for the Austrian town of Eisenertz with her 79-year-old mother and two sons, aged four and nine, she told Al Jazeera.
“How am I going to leave my children, and how is my sick mom going to travel to Vienna?” Glushko asked.
And to carry out elections, Ukraine would have to end martial law, giving Russia an edge and the opportunity to take even more territory, Likhachyov said.
Even as Trump made his speech on Tuesday, Russia launched ballistic missiles and 167 drones to attack central and southern Ukraine, wounding four people, including one child, and disrupting heat and power supplies in the southern city of Odesa.
‘Cat and mouse’
Volodymyr Fesenko, head of the Kyiv-based Penta think tank, called the election demands unrealistic and accused Russia of “tactically prolonging” peace talks to force the White House into making concessions.
Moscow wants to “seduce” Trump with multibillion deals such as the return of US oil companies to Russia and their participation in developing mineral riches in the Arctic, Fesenko said.
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“Russians are flexible. In their words, it’s all about flattery and compliments for Trump, but in their practice, when it comes to real talks, they play cat and mouse with Americans,” he told Al Jazeera.
History repeating itself
For many Ukrainians, Trump’s election demand along with his false accusation that Ukraine started the conflict with Russia were met with defiance and anger.
Iryna, a servicewoman in the southern city of Odesa, said she supports Zelenskyy and his government and accused Russia and Trump of trying to weaken and distract her country.
“The election is about extra expenses and will distract Ukraine from our biggest problem – the war,” she told Al Jazeera. “Since Zelenskyy has been handling the war, it’s up to him to end it.”
Ukrainian Ministry of Defence regulations prohibit military personnel from disclosing their full names and rank to the media.
Iryna added that this external push for elections reminded her of early 2014 when a months-long popular uprising ousted pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych and an interim government headed by parliament Speaker Oleksandr Turchynov was formed.
The Kremlin used the interregnum to deploy tens of thousands of servicemen to Crimea to take over government buildings and military bases. Turchynov’s government instructed Ukrainian servicemen and police officers not to resist the takeover, and the inaction led to Moscow’s annexation of the Black Sea peninsula.
For Vyacheslav, 29, who joined the army in 2022 and is now recovering from a wounded leg, the rhetoric of the White House and the Kremlin reminds him of another dark period in Europe’s history.
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“It’s disgusting to see how they are getting ready to carve up Ukraine the way Stalin and Hitler carved up Poland in 1939,” said Vyacheslav, referring to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, a nonaggression treaty signed by Russia and Germany that divided Poland between the two nations.
“We all know how that ended,” he said.
