TESTIMONY: Ukrainian Elections Await the End of Martial Law — the 2027–2029 Budget Confirms It

The budget statement as a political reveal

Budgets are political documents before they are financial ones. What a government chooses to include — or to omit — the allocations it forecasts or defers, the assumptions encoded in its multi-year projections: all of it speaks to real intentions, to the horizon a government has set for itself, to decisions already made that will only be announced publicly later. In that sense, the Ukrainian 2027–2029 Budget Statement, approved by government resolution on June 17, 2026, is a particularly readable political document.

What it says, plainly: the funding for Ukrainian presidential and parliamentary elections will be allocated after the lifting or expiry of martial law. Not during. Not in spite of. After. That wording is not a bureaucratic drafting accident — it is a deliberate policy, consistent with the position defended by the Zelensky government since 2022: elections do not take place during a total war, and the budget reflects that decision. A decision with its defenders, its critics, and implications that deserve honest examination.

It takes a certain candor to write "no elections during the war" into an official budget document, rather than dressing it up in diplomatic phrasing. That candor makes some allies uncomfortable. It is nonetheless necessary for the Ukrainian government's credibility.

A legal framework renewed every 90 days

Ukraine's martial law, declared on February 24, 2022 at the onset of the full-scale Russian invasion, is renewed by the Parliament (Verkhovna Rada) every 90 days. Each renewal is passed by majority vote, and each time, the question of extension is debated politically. Since 2022, no renewal vote has failed — the state of war is objective, and virtually all Ukrainian political forces acknowledge the necessity of maintaining the martial law legal framework as long as combat continues.

Martial law suspends a number of rights and freedoms under defined circumstances — including the right to legislative and presidential elections. The Ukrainian Constitution explicitly prohibits holding elections during a state of war or emergency. This is not a discretionary decision by the Zelensky government — it is a constitutional rule. Zelensky's presidential mandate, won in 2019 for five years, theoretically expired in May 2024, but the constitution provides that the sitting president remains in office until the election of a successor — which can only occur outside a state of war.

The legitimacy question raised by some allies

The question of Zelensky's democratic legitimacy has been raised by some Western allies — notably European and American legislators — who express concern over the absence of elections since 2024. These concerns are raised in good faith in some cases, and in others are politically weaponized by actors seeking to undermine support for Ukraine.

Ukraine's response is consistent and legally grounded: the Ukrainian Constitution prohibits elections under martial law, this rule applies to all states operating under such a framework, and holding elections under current conditions — with millions of Ukrainians displaced across Europe and within the country, with entire areas under occupation or regularly bombed — would be technically impossible and would not produce a representative result. The real threat to Ukrainian democracy is not the absence of elections — it is the war Russia has imposed on it.

Those who demand elections in Ukraine during the war sometimes ask the right question with the wrong intentions. Democracy is not measured only by elections — it is also measured by a people's capacity to defend its existence. Zelensky is defending both.

A planning document, not a prophecy

The 2027–2029 Budget Statement is a multi-year planning document that establishes the broad orientations of Ukrainian public expenditure over the period. It does not predict the end of the war — it structures budget assumptions according to possible scenarios. Inscribing electoral funding as conditional on the lifting of martial law is therefore a planning assumption, not a statement about the conflict's projected duration.

This document was approved by the Ukrainian government at its session of June 17, 2026 — a date that precedes by just days the announcements of the 40-day operation launched by Zelensky. The timing suggests the Ukrainian government is simultaneously intensifying military pressure on Russia and maintaining long-term budget planning — two signals that are not contradictory but indicate a two-horizon strategy: short-term operational urgency and medium-term institutional normalization.

The non-electoral budget lines: reconstruction and defence

Beyond the electoral question, the 2027–2029 Budget Statement reveals the priorities the Ukrainian government has set for the immediate post-war period. The broad outlines include maintaining a high level of defence spending — at least 5 to 6% of GDP — even after a hypothetical ceasefire, acknowledging that Ukrainian security will remain threatened by a Russia that will not have been militarily defeated. Allocations for infrastructure reconstruction and support for the displaced are also embedded, reflecting the priority given to post-conflict social stabilization.

These budget orientations are consistent with recommendations from international financial organizations — notably the IMF and the World Bank — which have advised Ukraine to maintain a robust defence envelope even during reconstruction, to avoid repeating the mistakes of the post-2014 years that left the Ukrainian army chronically underfunded.

Planning for a Ukraine that will remain armed even after the war — that is drawing the lesson of 2014–2022. Those years of military underinvestment cost tens of thousands of Ukrainian lives. Never again. The budget says so.

The State Duma in 2026: a simulated democracy

There is an instructive counterpoint to the question of Ukrainian elections: the Russian State Duma elections, scheduled for 2026. In an article published by the NEST Centre in June 2026, researchers analyzed how the war in Ukraine was shaping the campaign and expected outcome of those elections: a democratic performance orchestrated by the Kremlin, without real opposition, in a context of repression of all organized dissent since the 2022 invasion.

The comparison is instructive: Russia holds elections during the war because they are not designed to produce a change of power — they serve to legitimate the existing regime. Ukraine does not hold elections during the war because its elections would genuinely be designed to choose leaders through competitive, legitimate means — which is impossible under current conditions. That contrast says everything about the difference between the two political systems.

Ukrainian democracy outside of war: what it produces

Before the full-scale war, Ukraine had demonstrated a capacity to hold competitive elections, produce peaceful transfers of power, and maintain a remarkable political pluralism for a country in its region. In 2019, Zelensky defeated incumbent president Poroshenko with more than 73% of the vote in a ballot unanimously praised as free and fair by international observers. That democracy has not disappeared under the war — it has been suspended, provisionally and lawfully.

Ukrainian opinion polling available in 2025–2026 shows that if elections were held tomorrow, Zelensky would likely remain the most supported political figure — but in genuine competition with credible alternatives. That reality matters: the suspension of elections does not mean Ukrainian democracy is dead. It means it is waiting for the conditions to function.

Ukrainian democracy demonstrated in 2019 that it can produce genuine alternations of power. It has put those alternations on hold to survive a war. That is not a democratic capitulation — it is a democratic decision made under extraordinary circumstances.

Opponents asserting a legitimate right

Within Ukraine itself, some political voices have expressed the desire to hold elections despite the war — or at least to create an intermediate popular consultation mechanism to renew the government's mandate. These voices are neither marginal nor pro-Russian: they include legislators from Ukraine's democratic opposition who acknowledge the necessity of martial law but question how long governance without a renewed electoral mandate is acceptable.

These concerns deserve to be taken seriously — not because they are right on the immediate substance (holding elections now would be irresponsible), but because they reflect democratic vitality: a society where opposition can express itself even during wartime is a society that keeps its democratic reflexes alive. The Zelensky government has maintained the political space for such expression — with the exception of explicitly pro-Russian parties, banned after 2022.

Ally pressure and Ukrainian responses

Some Western partners — notably in the United States and certain European countries — have expressed concerns about the democratic legitimacy of the Ukrainian government. These expressions have generally been accompanied by continued support for military and financial aid, indicating they are more preventive warnings than conditions for withdrawal of support.

Ukraine has responded to these concerns by committing to hold elections as soon as martial law is lifted — and by documenting that commitment in the budget, as the 2027–2029 statement does explicitly. That is the most concrete form of commitment possible: not a verbal promise, but a formal budget inscription that creates a political obligation.

Putting electoral funding in a budget is more than a promise — it is an institutional commitment. Zelensky has not merely said "there will be elections after the war." He has put it in the budget. The difference matters.

Polls and public confidence

Opinion data available in Ukraine — notably from the Rating Sociology Group and the Razumkov Centre — consistently show that a significant majority of Ukrainians support the government's position of not holding elections during the war. In the most recent available surveys, between 60 and 70% of respondents believed elections should wait until the end of the war.

This majority position reflects both confidence in Zelensky's wartime leadership and a practical understanding of the difficulties: with millions of Ukrainians displaced inside the country or sheltering in Europe, with entire areas inaccessible, with postal and electoral systems extremely difficult to organize under bombardment, holding free and fair elections would be technically and logistically formidable. Ukrainian public opinion, pragmatic about the war, has absorbed that reality.

War fatigue and government legitimacy

Despite majority support for the suspension of elections, war fatigue — real and documented in polling — has taken a toll on the Zelensky government's popularity. Approval ratings, which touched 90% in 2022, have declined steadily, reflecting frustrations over mobilization management, human losses, and tensions between the demands of soldiers and the needs of civilians.

This decline is normal and healthy — it indicates that Ukrainian society has maintained its critical capacity even during wartime. It does not fundamentally undermine the government's legitimacy to lead the war effort — but it signals that an electoral transition, as soon as conditions permit, will be eagerly awaited by a population that has accounts to settle with its leaders.

Zelensky's declining popularity is not a sign of crisis — it is a sign of democracy. A society that can criticize its government during a war of survival is a society that deserves to survive that war.

The conditions for a return to electoral normality

For Ukrainian elections to take place under acceptable conditions, several requirements must be met. The lifting of martial law — which requires either a formal ceasefire or a substantial reduction in hostilities that makes voter and polling station security guaranteeable. The return of a sufficient number of displaced persons to allow a representative vote — a condition that will take time even after combat ends. And the reconstitution of electoral rolls, damaged by population displacement and the destruction of administrative infrastructure in occupied or bombed areas.

These conditions suggest that even after a hypothetical ceasefire, a delay of several months — perhaps a year or more — will be necessary before fully fair elections can be organized. The 2027–2029 budget statement anticipates this reality by providing funding after the lifting of martial law — not necessarily in the days following its lifting, but within the subsequent budget cycle.

The post-conflict election model

Historical precedents for post-conflict elections offer varied lessons. The Iraqi elections of 2005 — held amid significant insecurity — produced legitimate results but under conditions that limited participation in certain regions. The post-Dayton Bosnian elections were organized with sufficient delay to allow minimal institutional reconstruction. Every context is unique — but all demonstrate that the democratic quality of a post-conflict election depends directly on the conditions under which it is held.

Ukraine benefits from not rushing its first post-war elections in response to external political pressure. Hasty elections in a context of instability would produce contestable results that would weaken the elected government and complicate democratic reconstruction. The budgetary patience inscribed in the 2027–2029 statement is a wise decision — provided the delay serves to prepare genuinely fair elections.

The 2005 Iraqi elections are often cited as an example. They show you can vote under fire — and that it produces fragile results. Ukraine is right to prefer waiting for conditions that will yield a solid mandate.

How Ukraine prepares its institutions for peace

The question of elections under martial law in Ukraine is inextricably linked to the vision of what the country will be after the war. Zelensky and his advisors insist that holding elections during the conflict would carry democratic risks — logistics impossible in combat zones, potential manipulation, decisions made in crisis rather than deliberation. Those arguments are legitimate. But they must be balanced by the reality that every democracy is built through the practice — however imperfect — of its institutions.

International organizations such as the Council of Europe, the Venice Commission, and democracy support foundations are working with Ukrainian institutions to prepare the legislative and organizational framework that will enable credible elections as soon as conditions allow. This preparatory work is often invisible in the press, but it is fundamental for ensuring that the return to democratic normality will be orderly and robust.

International support for Ukrainian democracy during the war

The draft 2027–2029 budgets being prepared in Kyiv reflect this long-term planning. They include funding lines for electoral commissions, observer training, and voter registration systems — including the millions of Ukrainian refugees abroad, whose right to vote will need to be preserved. This electoral planning within a war budget says something important about Ukraine's vision of its democratic future.

Ukraine's European partners have a role to play in this process: supporting the electoral preparation financially and technically, ensuring that Ukrainians sheltering in their countries can vote in dignified conditions, and committing to recognize the results of those elections as legitimate once the minimum conditions of freedom and fairness are met. That preparatory support is as important as military aid for Ukraine's future.

A democracy that plans its elections in a wartime budget — that is a powerful signal about what Ukraine wants to be. Not a suspended democracy waiting for peace to start functioning again. A democracy actively preparing its future even in adversity. That signal deserves to be heard and supported.

What this decision says about Ukraine in 2026

The decision to inscribe electoral funding in the 2027–2029 Budget Statement as conditional on the end of martial law is, simply, a decision consistent with the Ukrainian Constitution and the practices of democracies in a state of war. It does not constitute an authoritarian drift — it constitutes a rigorous application of the legal framework a democracy has given itself to navigate extraordinary circumstances.

What distinguishes this situation from a genuine drift is precisely the public, budgetary, and institutional commitment to hold elections as soon as conditions allow. Ukraine is not suspending elections indefinitely and without horizon — it is deferring them to a clearly defined condition: the lifting of martial law. That condition is politically and constitutionally verifiable. And the budget is pre-financing it.

The real testimony: a society that keeps its horizons

The real testimony this budget statement delivers is not that of a democracy giving up. It is that of a society which, in the middle of a total war, still thinks about what comes after — which plans its future elections, which inscribes legal obligations in its budgets, which maintains the institutional structures that will one day allow it to return to normal political life. That may be the deepest form of resistance: refusing to let the war erase the democratic Ukraine it is struggling to become.

Martial law does not kill democracy — it suspends it. The distinction is fundamental. A suspension with a plan for return, with budget forecasts that integrate future elections, with institutions actively preparing — that is very different from a democracy that forgets what it is. Ukraine is not forgetting. That is why it deserves to be defended.

By Maxime Marquette, columnist

Editorial stance

I am not a journalist but a columnist and analyst. My expertise lies in observing and analysing the geopolitical, economic and strategic dynamics that shape our world. My work is to take political strategies apart, to understand global economic movements, to put the decisions of international actors in context and to offer analytical perspectives on the changes that are redefining our societies.

I do not claim the cold objectivity of traditional journalism, which stops at reporting facts. I claim analytical clarity, rigorous interpretation and a deep understanding of the complex issues that concern us all. My role is to give meaning to the facts, to place them in their historical and strategic context, and to offer a critical reading of events.

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