Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has rejected his ex-defence chief’s calls for a wartime election, calling the prospect a “huge risk” amid the more than four-year war with Russia. Ukrainian law bans elections during wartime, a measure that had gone unchallenged until former Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov made the first public demand for a vote earlier this week. Zelenskyy rejected the call during a wide-ranging briefing with reporters on Saturday.
Elections right now are a tsunami for the country that will split Ukraine,” the president said in comments published on Sunday. The 35-year-old Fedorov – a popular figure in Ukraine – held his post for just six months until Zelenskyy fired him in July, prompting protests across the country. On Tuesday, he posted an explosive nine-minute video on YouTube claiming that Ukraine’s democracy “cannot be held hostage by Russia”.
I’m sure it’s not,” he said, adding that Kyiv faces a “systemic crisis of governance”. Experts have told Al Jazeera, however, that any wartime election would be practically impossible amid logistical and safety challenges, a reality that most Ukrainians agree with. Zelenskyy’s domestic political crisis is playing out as his government seeks more ways to curtail Moscow’s deadly air strikes.
Overnight Russian strikes in the eastern Donetsk region killed two people and wounded two others on Sunday, Ukraine’s emergency services said on Telegram. At least 141 private homes sustained damage in the attack. Another eight people, including a child, were wounded in a drone attack on the northeastern city of Kharkiv that burned at least two residential buildings, the service said.
Meanwhile in the Odesa region, a Russian drone hit a passenger train travelling from Zhytomyr to Odesa, the Kyiv Independent reported, citing Ukrainian Railways CEO Oleksandr Pertsovskyi. No casualties were reported. Amid the attacks, Zelenskyy said on Saturday that Ukraine is especially focused on hitting Russian ballistic launchers as Moscow ramps up its use of missiles – which effectively can only be destroyed by US-designed Patriot systems.
Ukraine has received just 264 Patriot missiles in 2026, down from 364 in 2025 and 675 in 2023, he said. Ukraine is seeking to produce Patriot missiles domestically after receiving political blessing from United States President Donald Trump. The Ukrainian president also said Moscow and Kyiv are building their own versions of Starlink, the satellite system used for battlefield communications that is controlled by US tech billionaire Elon Musk.
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