Ukraine’s War Zone Election Conundrum

President Biden often says that his support for Ukraine in its war with Russia is part of a broader contest between democracy and autocracy. In this light, Ukraine’s decision to postpone the elections regularly scheduled to take place in late March has particular import.

Opponents of military aid for Ukraine frequently cite this postponement as proof of their charge that Ukraine is not in fact a functioning democracy. They’re wrong, although no one can say that Ukrainian democracy—as is often the case in newly free states—yet meets American or Western European standards. Ukraine’s frequent postponement of elections, however, is persuasive to the millions of people, generally supporters of former President Donald Trump, who don’t believe the United States has a compelling interest in Ukraine’s fate.

Trump’s continued lead in the polls, coupled with Biden’s record-low approval ratings for a first-term president, means Ukraine has to think more broadly about its interests. It is not undemocratic to postpone elections when at war; Great Britain did that during both world wars. Ukraine’s heavy reliance on American aid, however, counsels that it take a different course.

Scheduling elections during wartime is not easy. Provisions will have to be made to secure voting places from Russian attack, update voter rolls and relax media censorship, for example. These issues pale in comparison, however, to what will befall the nation if Trump wins and decides to compel Ukraine to pursue an end to the war.

The Unique Challenges of Wartime Elections

Ukraine’s current stance is consistent with its Constitution and laws enacted before the Russian invasion, which permit election postponement during times of martial law. In February, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the country’s parliament extended martial law for another 90 days, meaning an election cannot be held until the summer at the earliest. A poll taken in November also shows the Ukrainian people don’t want to hold an election during wartime. They should nonetheless use this time, and perhaps a further extension of martial law in May, to begin preparing for a fall election in case circumstances in the United States make it in their interest to do so.

They will need the added time because holding an election during wartime and in a war zone is particularly hard. Voter rolls are no longer accurate, as millions of people have moved and tens of thousands have died. Many Ukrainians are now living elsewhere in Europe as refugees, making their registration and participation particularly difficult. Indeed, current Ukrainian law may make these refugees ineligible to vote because they have spent more than 183 days out of the country for a reason not sanctioned under pre-war electoral law. No genuinely democratic vote can avoid these problems, but a rushed effort will leave any election open to potential fraud and misconduct.

Soldiers on the frontline also need to be able to vote, but that’s well-nigh impossible when one is under bombardment in a trench. They might need to be given the ability to vote by mail, which raises other questions regarding fraud, the secrecy of the ballot and even Russian targeting of vehicles carrying ballots from the trenches to post offices. These complications are not unsolvable—many American troops voted in 1944 during World War II—but even ameliorating these challenges requires time, attention and money—three things Ukraine’s already strapped government lacks. That means soliciting foreign support and personnel to help finance and administer the election, yet another complication.

A wartime election also means loosening wartime censorship so that candidates and parties can campaign freely. That necessarily also means allowing open criticism of the government’s war effort, either from those who want to negotiate with Russia or from nationalists who think the government has been too timid in its conduct. This raises the chance of national division, as well as clandestine Russian interference and subversion. The latter point is especially important given Russia’s long-standing efforts to control or influence Ukrainian politics and its deeply rooted network of spies and covert Ukrainian allies.

This fact also leads to another peculiarly Ukrainian problem: the banning of political parties and institutions accused of acting as traitors or Russian agents. Eleven parties had their activities suspended in March 2023 as a result of their historically close ties with the Kremlin. These were not small, insignificant groups: The three largest—Opposition Bloc, Opposition Platform — For Life, and Shariy’s Party—collectively got over 18% of the vote in the last parliamentary election in 2019. Ukrainians who supported these parties in the past may have changed their minds, but they also might want to organize new parties to push for a negotiated end to the war. Any free and fair elections have to allow some measure of this element to campaign openly for public support.

Russian Occupation and the Ukrainian Vote

Many of these people, however, are likely now living in areas under Russian occupation. That introduces yet another issue: Potentially millions of Ukrainian citizens will be unable to vote in a pivotal election. That’s not something that can be avoided given Russia’s claim to have annexed the territories it now controls. But it does mean that the election outcome could be decided by their exclusion.

That’s because of Ukraine’s entrenched regional voting patterns. For decades, regions along the Black Sea Coast or closer to Russia have favored candidates who were friendlier to the Kremlin than those in regions closer to nations in the European Union. This pattern even persisted after Russia’s 2014 invasion of Crimea and the Donbas. The Donbas area not conquered by Russia in 2014 still backed a Russia-friendly presidential candidate, Yuriy Boyko, in 2019’s first round. Candidates from one of the banned parties also won most of the parliamentary seats in the Donbas in 2019. This means that the Ukrainians most likely to want a negotiated peace would also be the likeliest to be unable to cast a ballot.

That raises yet another factor to consider: the political impact on President Zelenskyy. The five regions that Russia either fully or partially occupies or which were only retaken by Ukraine in late 2022 gave Zelenskyy nearly 90% of the vote in the second round of the 2019 contest. Roughly 3.7 million valid votes—over 20% of the total—were cast in those places. These voters are now either refugees or under Russian occupation, making Zelenskyy more vulnerable to a nationalist candidate from the country’s west.

The U.S.’s Pivotal Role

All these obstacles and challenges make holding a free and fair election during wartime fraught with risk. It’s understandable why, for patriotic and selfish reasons, Ukrainian leaders have chosen to postpone the election. The rise of anti-Ukraine-aid sentiments within the Republican Party, however, pose a greater potential threat to the country than going ahead with the vote.

It's become increasingly clear that the European Union nations are unable to adequately supply Ukraine’s military needs. Most of them allowed their own militaries to atrophy during the post-Cold War era, depriving them of material surplus they can donate. More tellingly, their decision to drastically cut military spending meant that their capacity to produce modern quality material in mass has seriously diminished. EU nations are rearming rapidly, but it will be years before they can supply Ukraine’s wartime needs, as well as their own.

That’s why the United States has taken the lead in providing military aid to Ukraine. While the EU and its member countries have delivered far more in financial and humanitarian aid, the United States has provided more military aid than those nations combined. Adding in military support from the United Kingdom, Norway and other non-EU U.S. allies only reduces the American share somewhat. Ukraine’s bid for genuine independence will likely fail without continued, substantial American aid.

Biden may be able to eventually secure passage of the current aid package, which has stalled in the Republican-controlled House. His reelection is uncertain, as he currently trails Trump by about 2 percentage points in the RealClearPolitics polling average. That actually overstates his chances, as recent elections have shown that Trump can lose the popular vote by 2-4 points and still win an Electoral College majority, given the state-by-state breakdown of the candidates’ support. Though the Democrats could retake the House, Republicans are favored to win back control of the Senate. Depending solely on Biden and the Democrats is, therefore, not in Ukraine’s interests.

That’s where preparing to hold fall elections can help. Zelenskyy can rebut one of the major arguments deployed against providing aid and show he can listen to Trumpist concerns by making those preparations. Given Trump’s mercurial personality, he may well take that as a sign that he can deal with Zelenskyy. Convincing Trump to speak more favorably about Ukraine’s aspirations could do wonders for the country’s standing with both major American parties.

Holding off on starting these preparations until it is clear whether Trump will win could prove disastrous. Trump’s lack of interest in detail could mean he would be unconcerned with the heavy challenges Ukraine would have to undertake to hold a competent election. Zelenskyy would not want to be told next January, for example, that he needs to hold elections by the spring for Trump to consider continuing Biden’s aid policy. Better to get ahead of the cart than to have it run over you.

Ukraine is clearly a democratic state despite its flaws. If it were not, one could be sure that Russia’s long-standing desire to effectively reabsorb the country into its sphere of influence would succeed, as it has in the neighboring and nominally independent state of Belarus. Only the democratically expressed will of the Ukrainian people has secured the election of leaders immune to Moscow’s lures. Such courage deserves our support, especially since our European allies fear what would befall them if Russia were to win.

Zelenskyy’s goal should be to ensure that independence, which means procuring European and American support for the long term and relying on broad, cross-partisan political support. Holding elections in a war zone is not an optimal choice. If doing so increases the chance of keeping Ukraine free, however, it is well worth the difficulties and the risks.