By Erin Banco and Jonathan Landay
NEW YORK/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States wants Ukraine to hold elections, potentially by the end of the year, especially if Kyiv can agree a truce with Russia in the coming months, President Donald Trump’s top Ukraine official told Reuters.
Keith Kellogg, Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, said in an interview that Ukrainian presidential and parliamentary elections, suspended during the war with Russia, “need to be done”.
“Most democratic nations have elections in their time of war. I think it is important they do so,” Kellogg said. “I think it is good for democracy. That’s the beauty of a solid democracy, you have more than one person potentially running.”
Trump and Kellogg have both said they are working on a plan to broker a deal in the first several months of the new administration to end the all-out war that erupted with Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.
They have offered few details about their strategy for ending the deadliest conflict in Europe since World War Two, nor when they might unveil such a plan.
The Trump plan is still evolving and no policy decisions have been made, but Kellogg and other White House officials have discussed in recent days pushing Ukraine to agree to elections as part of an initial truce with Russia, two people with knowledge of those conversations and a former U.S. official briefed about the election proposal said.
Trump officials are also debating whether to push for an initial ceasefire before trying to broker a more permanent deal, the two people familiar with the Trump administration discussions said. If presidential elections were to take place in Ukraine, the winner could be responsible for negotiating a longer-term pact with Moscow, the people said.
The sources declined to be named in order to discuss sensitive policy and security issues.
It is unclear how such a Trump proposal would be greeted in Kyiv. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said Ukraine could hold elections this year if the fighting ends and strong security guarantees are in place to deter Russia from renewing hostilities.
A senior adviser to Kyiv and a Ukrainian government source said the Trump administration has not yet formally requested Ukraine hold presidential elections by the end of the year.
SETTING A TRAP
Zelenskiy’s five-year term was supposed to end in 2024 but presidential and parliamentary polls cannot be held under martial law, which Ukraine imposed in February 2022.
Washington raised the issue of elections with senior officials in Zelenskiy’s office in 2023 and 2024 during the Biden administration, two former senior U.S. officials said.
State Department and White House officials told their Ukrainian counterparts that elections were critical to uphold international and democratic norms, the officials said.
Officials in Kyiv have pushed back on elections in conversations with Washington in recent months, telling Biden officials that hosting polls at such a volatile moment in Ukraine’s history would divide Ukrainian leaders and potentially invite Russian influence campaigns, the two former U.S. officials said.
Asked about what the former Western official and two other people familiar with the matter told Reuters, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “We do not have that information.”
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov was cited by the Interfax news agency on Jan. 27 as saying that direct contacts between Moscow and the Trump administration were not yet underway. The Russian Foreign Ministry says it is still waiting for the U.S. to approve its new pick as Moscow’s ambassador in Washington, a post currently unoccupied.
Putin has said publicly he does not think Zelenskiy is a legitimate leader in the absence of a renewed electoral mandate and that the Ukrainian president does not have the legal right to sign binding documents related to a potential peace deal.
According to the Russian leader, however, Zelenskiy could take part in negotiations in the meantime but must first revoke a 2022 decree he signed banning talks with Russia for as long as Putin is in charge.
The Ukrainian government source said Putin was using the election issue as a false excuse to disrupt future negotiations.
“(He) is setting a trap, claiming that if Ukraine doesn’t hold elections, he can later ignore any agreements,” the source said.
RUSSIA’S BIDDING?
Ukrainian legislation explicitly prohibits presidential and parliamentary elections being held under martial law.
The former Western official raised concerns about the U.S. push for elections, saying lifting martial law could allow mobilized soldiers to leave the military, trigger an exodus of hard currency and prompt large numbers of draft-age men to “run for the border”.
It could also ignite political instability, the source said, because it would make Zelenskiy a lame duck, diluting his power and influence and fueling jockeying by potential challengers.
If Trump pressures Zelenskiy to agree to elections, Washington would be playing into Putin’s recent statements questioning the Ukrainian leader’s legitimacy, the former Western official said.
“Trump is reacting, in my view, to … Russian feedback,” the official said. “Russia wants to see an end to Zelenskiy.”
Some former U.S. officials say they are skeptical that a peace deal can be reached in the coming months or that elections would take place in 2025, particularly because both sides appear to be at odds on how to begin formal negotiations.
The Kremlin has said repeatedly that Putin is open to talks without preconditions.
But William Taylor, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, said Putin has shown no readiness for serious negotiations.
Zelenskiy is seeking U.S. and European security guarantees as part of any deal, including the deployment of a foreign military force on the frontlines to ensure Russia abides by any truce.
(Reporting by Erin Banco in New York and Jonathan Landay in Washington; Additional reporting by Andrew Osborn in London and Tom Balmforth in Kyiv; Editing by Don Durfee and David Clarke)
