The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, reaffirmed this Saturday at the Munich Security Conference that he is willing to immediately call elections as the US president, Donald Trump, requested at the time, if there is a ceasefire and security is guaranteed to hold them.
“Give us two months of ceasefire and we will go to elections. That’s all,” Zelensky said when asked about this matter.
Zelensky was elected in 2019 for a five-year term that ended in 2024 and was automatically extended when Ukrainian law prohibited going to the polls in time of war.
Despite the multiple complaints of irregularities that have been made about the Russian elections, the Kremlin and, on several occasions, Trump, have used this circumstance to cast doubt on Zelensky’s democratic legitimacy.
“President Trump can do it. Put pressure on Putin, have a ceasefire. And then our Parliament will change the law and we will go to elections,” said the Ukrainian president, who added – making the audience laugh – that if Russia also wants to organize elections, Ukraine is ready to declare a ceasefire for this.
In his speech in Munich, Zelensky also said that dividing Ukraine to please Russia will not bring real peace, and compared the situation created by the current Russian invasion with that which Europe experienced with the invasion of Czechoslovakia by Nazi Germany on the eve of World War II.
“It would be illusory to believe that the war can be truly ended by dividing Ukraine, just as it was illusory to believe that sacrificing Czechoslovakia would save Europe from a major war,” Zelensky said in his speech at the Munich Security Conference, in an apparent reference to Russia’s demand that the invaded country cede to it the entire Donbas region, including the territory it does not yet control in Donetsk.
The Ukrainian president reaffirmed that Ukraine is willing to do everything possible so that the peace negotiations promoted by the US are successful, and confirmed that he plans to meet this Saturday in Munich with the US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, to discuss the process to end the war.
Zelensky also referred to the security guarantees that he requests to sign any peace agreement, and called on Trump and the US Congress to approve as soon as possible the post-war security guarantees that Washington has negotiated with kyiv.
“We have solid agreements ready to be signed with the US and with Europe. We think that the agreement on security guarantees must come before any agreement to end the war,” Zelensky said in his speech at the Munich Security Conference.
“And we hope that President Trump listens to us. We hope that Congress listens to us,” he stressed.
Another of the conditions to end the war – included in the 20-point document negotiated by Ukraine with the US that kyiv hopes the Kremlin will accept – is that a date be agreed in writing for the country’s entry into the European Union (EU), explained Zelensky, who has mentioned on several occasions his wish for it to be in 2027.
