Russia has invented an unresolvable challenge to the legitimacy of the current Ukrainian government. The Kremlin is insisting on Ukrainian elections as a precondition for signing a final peace agreement while simultaneously denying that the Ukrainian government can hold legitimate elections and refusing to commit to the ceasefire necessary to hold elections at all. This Russian cognitive warfare effort aims to undermine Western support for Ukraine. It also aims to create conditions to reject any potential peace agreements Russia might sign with the current Ukrainian government by claiming that the government that signed those agreements was illegitimate. Ukraine cannot escape this rhetorical trap even by holding elections, moreover, as the Kremlin denies that the current government in Kyiv is competent to hold elections on its own. This dilemma is a fiction of Moscow’s creation and does not reflect reality.  It is important because of the window it offers into Russia’s determination to avoid a compromise peace and to achieve all of its maximalist demands of Ukraine and NATO.

The Kremlin’s circular rhetoric is an excuse to protract peace negotiations, extract unilateral concessions from Ukraine, and create conditions to exit the negotiations at any time of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s choosing or to violate an agreement once concluded. The Kremlin’s rhetoric also aims to coerce Ukraine into capitulating to Russia’s demands, to install a pro-Russian government, or to set the conditions to violate any agreement on the grounds that the Ukrainian signatories were illegitimate. Russia may aim to achieve a combination of these goals.  The Kremlin’s invention of an unresolvable dilemma for Ukraine is also part of the Kremlin’s attempt to deflect blame away from Russia and portray Ukraine as the obstacle to negotiations, while promoting an agreement that would allow Russia to avoid ever recognizing Ukraine as a legitimate political entity, something that Putin has denied that Ukraine is or can ever be.[1]  

The Kremlin is deliberately misrepresenting Ukraine’s constitution in an effort to portray the current Ukrainian leadership as illegitimate.  Putin and other Kremlin officials have repeatedly falsely claimed that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is illegitimate because Ukraine, adhering to its constitution and laws, did not hold elections as scheduled in 2024, and that Russia will only sign legal documents with “legitimate” authorities.[2] Other Russian officials routinely cite Zelensky’s and other Ukrainian officials’ alleged illegitimacy as one of many reasons that Russia cannot participate in negotiations.[3]

The Kremlin has decided that various elements of the Ukrainian government are not legitimate at various times, pointing to deliberately misread portions of the Ukrainian constitution. Some Russian officials have claimed, based on an intentional misrepresentation of the constitution, that the Verkhovna Rada is the only legitimate part of the Ukrainian government with which Russia could negotiate.[4] Putin has also claimed that all Zelensky-appointed Ukrainian government bodies are illegitimate, alleging that if the president is illegitimate, then “the entire system of power becomes illegitimate.”[5] Putin’s claim that the whole government under Zelensky is illegitimate suggests that Russia would not recognize as binding an agreement signed by any member of the current Ukrainian government.[6] Putin and other Russian officials have claimed that Zelensky is illegitimate because Ukraine did not hold presidential elections in 2024 and have additionally alleged that all Ukrainian civil authorities are therefore illegitimate, as the president appoints regional officials.[7] The Kremlin’s deliberate misinterpretation of the Ukrainian Constitution to justify its claims of Zelensky’s illegitimacy contrasts with its dismissal of the Ukrainian Constitution’s requirement for a national referendum to approve any territorial cessions.[8]

The current Ukrainian government is completely legitimate in accord with Ukraine’s constitution and laws, and current Ukrainian officials hold positions that the Ukrainian people endorsed through elections operating within the confines of the Ukrainian Constitution. Zelensky is Ukraine’s legitimate president, and the speaker of the Verkhovna Rada and other election authorities are acting in line with the Ukrainian constitution. The Ukrainian people overwhelmingly endorsed Zelensky and his Servant of the People Party in Ukraine’s fair, transparent, and democratic 2019 presidential and parliamentary elections.[9] Since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion, no Ukrainian political faction has challenged Zelensky’s legitimacy before the Ukrainian Constitutional Court.[10] Moreover, polling demonstrates that Zelensky remains overwhelmingly popular among Ukrainians, retaining a higher approval rating than before Russia‘s full-scale invasion, and that an overwhelming majority of Ukrainians oppose holding wartime elections.[11] Additionally, the Ukrainian Constitutional Court is a valid mechanism for evaluating the constitutionality of the implementation of Ukrainian law, and it continues to safeguard the democratic process as the court remains operational even during martial law.[12]

Russia’s claims that the Ukrainian constitution prohibited Zelensky from serving past the end of his normal term and that Ukraine can and must hold elections even during wartime are inaccurate. Ukraine’s constitution and Ukrainian law explicitly state that Ukraine cannot hold elections while martial law is in place, and Article 19 of the Ukrainian law “On the Legal Regime of Martial Law” forbids the Ukrainian president from abolishing martial law while “the threat of attack or danger to the state independence of Ukraine and its territorial integrity” remains.[13] The Ukrainian government, therefore, cannot legally suspend martial law while Russia continues to attack Ukraine and cannot constitutionally hold elections under martial law.

The obstacles to lifting martial law go far beyond the formal legal and constitutional prohibitions. Martial law is the basis on which roughly half of Ukraine’s armed forces are kept in the fight as servicemembers’ contracts stipulate that they must serve only as long as martial law is in place.[14]  Martial law also grants the government powers to censor communications, commandeer material and property, constrain or forbid large gatherings of people, regulate transportation, and many other things essential for a country under invasion and constant aerial bombardment. It would be irresponsible, indeed suicidal, for Ukraine to lift martial law absent a full-scale ceasefire even if the legal obstacles to doing so were overcome.

Continued Russian discussions about Ukrainian elections are obfuscated mechanisms that Russia is using to manipulate the process of negotiating a peace agreement. Russia is likely attempting to slow negotiations and set conditions, using false claims about Zelensky’s illegitimacy, to renege on any signed agreement and reattack Ukraine after reconstituting its forces at the time of its choosing. Russia is creating unfulfillable demands, including demands for elections during wartime, that attempt to place Ukraine in an untenable position. Russia is attempting to perpetuate the narrative that in rejecting the unfulfillable demands, Ukraine is the obstacle to peace — to shift blame from the fact that the Kremlin itself has been undermining negotiations by insisting on its maximalist demands and refusing to compromise on its original war aims.[15]

There cannot be a meaningful and enduring Russia-Ukraine peace deal if the international community accepts the current Russian narrative. The Kremlin has continuously maintained a formal position that Russia cannot sign a deal with the current, democratically elected Ukrainian leadership.[16] Kremlin officials have repeatedly claimed that Ukraine must hold elections for the Ukrainian government to be legitimate.[17] The international community cannot validate or support Russia’s demands while attempting to secure a deal that maintains Ukrainian sovereignty. It must recognize instead that Russian officials’ statements are a tool by which the Kremlin is attempting to manipulate peace negotiations and delay the negotiations process as Russia remains uninterested in any settlement that does not result in full political control of Ukraine.

Ukraine has continuously acted to preserve constitutional integrity even during wartime, and Russia has invented its supposed issues with Ukraine’s handling of constitutional responsibility. Putin claimed in November 2025 that the Ukrainian Constitutional Court must first recognize Zelensky’s authority before Zelensky can sign any peace agreement with Russia, but that the Constitutional Court is “not working,” and thus cannot recognize Zelensky’s legitimacy.[18] Putin’s statement was false when made as Zelensky’s appointment of a judge to fill a vacancy on the Constitutional Court in June 2025 restored quorum to the court and allowed it to resume work after a pause caused by the resignation of three of its judges in January 2025.[19] Putin also falsely claimed that the terms of the judges of the Constitutional Court have expired, although none of the current justices’ nine-year terms have expired.[20] Putin’s claim about the Constitutional Court is thus blatantly false, as it rests on a deliberate falsification of the status of the Constitutional Court.

Russia has been attempting to delegitimize the Ukrainian government for an extended period of time while still engaging in or “mediating” negotiations that ostensibly treat pro-Western Ukrainian governments as the legitimate power in Ukraine.  Putin has claimed that every pro-Western Ukrainian government that has held power in Ukraine since the 2014 Euromaidan protests and the Revolution of Dignity is illegitimate.[21] Ukraine’s 2014 Euromaidan protests and the Revolution of Dignity drove pro-Russian Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych from office and enabled Ukraine to hold free and fair democratic presidential elections.[22] Russian officials have repeatedly claimed that the Euromaidan protests and Revolution of Dignity were a “coup” that brought the current Ukrainian leadership to power, also rejecting the legitimacy of post-2014 Ukrainian governments.[23] Russian officials have leveraged this “coup” narrative to reinforce Russia’s claims that the current Ukrainian government is not legitimate and thus cannot negotiate with Russia.[24] Despite rejections of Ukrainian legitimacy by Putin and other Russian officials, Putin positioned himself as a mediator between Ukraine and his proxy separatist governments in the Minsk I and II negotiations in 2014 and 2015, even though Russia was directly involved in the military aggression against Ukraine.[25] Putin used this role as mediator to strongarm Ukraine into formal treaties conceding to Putin’s demands, and Russia and its proxies then consistently violated the agreements with no consequence until the February 2022 full-scale invasion.[26]  Putin’s actions since 2014 demonstrate that he is willing to recognize a Ukrainian government as a legitimate negotiating party when he has some means of forcing that government into compliance with his demands. Putin invaded Ukraine in February 2022 in order to regain that compliance, but he remains far from this objective after four years of war — so he has turned to other means to undermine the Ukrainian government and justify his continued war effort.

The Kremlin is working to insert itself directly and indirectly into Ukraine’s future elections, moreover.  Russian officials have called for the United Nations (UN) to oversee Ukrainian elections, which would create a mechanism that gives Russia de facto veto power over Ukrainian elections. Russian officials have claimed that the UN should install a temporary administration in Ukraine in order to have democratic elections and bring a “viable government” to power with which Russia could sign a peace treaty.[27] Russian officials have claimed that Russia would only then be able to negotiate with this temporary Ukrainian government — implying that Russia cannot sign binding agreements with the current Ukrainian government and that any future elections that the current government would oversee would be undemocratic and illegitimate.[28] The Kremlin’s demand to impose a temporary administration on Ukraine violates the rights of the legitimate Ukrainian government and people and is a rejection of Ukraine’s sovereignty and legitimacy. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres and White House National Security Council Spokesperson James Hewitt rejected such proposals when Putin first presented them in March 2025, stating that UN governance would be a violation of the legitimate Ukrainian government, the Ukrainian Constitution, and the Ukrainian people’s right of choice.[29] The Kremlin continues to use discussions on Ukrainian elections to assert that the Ukrainian government is illegitimate and is using specific discussions around potential UN monitoring to set conditions to declare Ukraine illegitimate and to nullify any election results.

Russia has shown that it will not accept elections in which it cannot control the outcome. The Kremlin has held numerous illegal referendums and elections in occupied Ukraine and Russia. Russia staged sham referendums in Crimea and parts of Donbas in 2014 and then in Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhia, and Kherson oblasts in 2022 in an attempt to claim that most of the population “voted” to be annexed by Russia.[30] These referendums were all conducted under an intense Russian military presence and without legitimate election observers, and Russian authorities reportedly falsified attendance statistics and manipulated ballots.[31] 

Kremlin officials have manipulated Russia’s domestic elections to suit Kremlin goals, and it will likely do the same in Ukraine if allowed. Kremlin officials have pointed to the fact that Russia conducted the 2024 Russian presidential election and sham referendums in 2022 as purported evidence for the ability to hold wartime elections — ignoring the autocratic and rigged nature of Russian elections and the differences between the Ukrainian and Russian constitutions and legal systems.[32] The Kremlin falsified voter data in the 2024 Russian presidential election, including in occupied Ukraine, and reports indicate that Russian occupation officials falsified supposedly record-high support for Putin in occupied Ukraine and coerced Ukrainian citizens to participate in the elections, which were inherently coercive given the large number of Russian forces operating in occupied Ukraine.[33] Furthermore, the Kremlin has not allowed independent observers to monitor even domestic Russian elections since 2016.[34] The Russian legal regime in place during those events, moreover, did not explicitly ban elections in the circumstances (since, among other things, Putin has not formally placed Russia in a legal state of war or declared martial law), whereas the Ukrainian Constitution and martial law legislation do.[35] Russia’s calls for UN governance and other forms of interference are even more absurd given that Ukraine has historically conducted more free and fair elections than Russia since 2014, and election monitors continue to be more necessary for Russian than for Ukrainian elections.

The Kremlin is setting conditions to claim that any future Ukrainian election that does not “sufficiently” allow “Ukrainians” under Russian control to vote is not free and fair in an attempt to manipulate potential Ukrainian elections, moreover.[36] Putin and other Kremlin officials have claimed that Ukraine will try to prevent “Ukrainian citizens” living in Russia from voting in a future Ukrainian election.[37] It is far from clear how the Kremlin would determine who is Ukrainian for purposes of voting, considering the intensive, forced passportization efforts that Russia has undertaken to coerce Ukrainians in territories under Russian control to renounce their Ukrainian citizenship in favor of Russian citizenship.[38] The Kremlin may try other means of falsifying Ukrainian votes in any given election. The Kremlin’s pressure on Ukraine to hold an election before a final peace agreement comes into effect ensures that Ukrainian authorities would be completely unable to oversee electoral processes within the Russian Federation, granting the Kremlin undue power over the Ukrainian government. The Kremlin likely further aims to use “Ukrainians” in Russia, or at least those whom the Russian leadership decides are Ukrainians for purposes of the election, to enable massive Russian election interference.

Russia has outlined a process and sequence of events that makes it inherently impossible for Ukraine to hold the elections that Putin is needlessly demanding as a precondition for a final peace agreement. Russia has repeatedly rejected any ceasefire to precede the signing of an official peace deal while also stipulating that a change in Ukrainian leadership is necessary for any peace deal to occur.[39] A theater-wide, long-term ceasefire is necessary for Ukraine to prepare and hold legitimate elections after the lifting of martial law.

Zelensky has stated that a ceasefire of at least 60 days is required for Ukraine to lift martial law and hold elections and for good reason.[40] The Ukrainian Constitution does not directly stipulate a specific time period for the lifting of martial law prior to the holding of elections, but it requires that there be no threat of attack to the state to lift martial law, and that Ukraine cannot hold elections under martial law.[41] Martial law curtails the functions necessary for Ukraine to hold elections, including the freedoms of speech, assembly, and protest. A free and fair elections process therefore requires more than the one-day ceasefire covering only election day that Russia has sometimes offered.[42] A proper ceasefire must allow for a period of organizing and campaigning, not under conditions of constant aerial bombardment and ground attacks, in order to give opposition candidates a fair chance of competing with the incumbent. It must create conditions in which Ukraine’s soldiers on the frontlines can participate. The Ukrainian Constitution has stipulations that bar elections under martial law, likely in consideration of these concerns.  Given that Russia launches hundreds of drones and missiles against Ukraine daily, intentionally targeting civilians, a one-day ceasefire only covering election day itself would not allow Ukrainian politicians to safely campaign or the Ukrainian people to express their opinion on the election in rallies and mass gatherings.[43] It would make the participation of Ukraine’s soldiers in the electoral process effectively impossible. A one-day ceasefire for elections is thus a nonsensical and unserious “offer” that only demonstrates Russia’s commitment to inventing an unresolvable dilemma for Ukraine.

Putin is also setting conditions to exit from negotiations regardless of any progress made on the spurious pretexts of his claims regarding the illegitimacy of Ukraine’s government. The Kremlin has intentionally sent relatively low-level delegations to meetings during the negotiations process to create the appearance of participation while in fact not committing to the process in good faith.[44] Russia has previously shifted its goalposts for negotiations and has already created the rhetorical basis for any future exit from negotiations that seem likely to result in something less than full Russian victory.[45] ISW has previously assessed that Russia is feigning interest in negotiations in order to buy time to make gains on the battlefield and extract concessions from Ukraine and the West — in contrast to Ukraine’s continued willingness to engage in negotiations to end the war.[46]

Russia has rhetorically invented a trap for Ukraine in order to erode Ukraine’s legitimacy in the eyes of Western leaders and persuade the West to abandon Ukraine — a long-running Kremlin goal. Putin’s perpetuation of the narrative that the Ukrainian government is illegitimate is an attempt to convince Western audiences to abandon Ukraine and to allow Russia to control all of Ukraine without international opposition.[47] Putin has attempted to convince the international community — in particular the West — to drop Ukraine and permit Russia’s illegal war against Ukraine since before the outbreak of the war in 2022. Putin has promulgated narratives that the current Ukrainian government is a ”nazi regime,” identifying “denazification” — a phrase the Kremlin uses to make its demand for the removal of the Ukrainian government and the installation of a pro-Russian puppet regime — as a reason for his full-scale invasion.[48] The Kremlin has engaged in a long-term cognitive warfare effort, platforming narratives questioning the legitimacy of the Ukrainian government itself, and the promotion of wartime elections continues this effort.[49]

Russia will only accept a deal that allows Russia to bring Ukraine into the Russian orbit through political or territorial control. The Kremlin has consistently reiterated its rejection of any peace deal that preserves Ukrainian sovereignty and right to join NATO and insists on the resolution of the “root causes” of the war. Kremlin officials use “root causes” as shorthand to refer to Russia’s demands for the rollback of NATO to its 1997 borders, the destruction of the Ukrainian military, and the replacement of the current democratically elected Ukrainian government with a pro-Russian regime.[50] Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov also recently claimed that any postwar Ukraine must be ”friendly“ and ”benevolent” to Russia, explicitly rejecting any future Ukrainian government that is not pro-Kremlin.[51] The Russian insistence on elections in Ukraine as somehow tied to the legitimacy of any peace agreement is therefore disingenuous, as the Kremlin has made it clear that it will deny the legitimacy of any Ukrainian government that does not allow Russian control over its composition and political orientation.[52]

The Kremlin further desires to absorb all of Ukraine into Russia, consistent with US President Donald Trump’s statements that Putin “wants all of it.”[53] Russian officials have repeatedly reiterated Russia’s far-reaching territorial objective of absorbing all of Ukraine into Russia, not just the four oblasts that Russia has illegally annexed.[54] The Kremlin’s continued military preparations for ground operations beyond just the four oblasts that Russia has illegally annexed highlight these far-reaching territorial ambitions.[55] Senior Kremlin officials have repeatedly stated that Russia will continue efforts on the battlefield to achieve its aims if it cannot achieve them through negotiations.[56] The continued Kremlin rhetorical focus on battlefield victory underscores that the Kremlin’s discussion of Ukrainian elections as a resolution to its war in Ukraine is merely an obfuscation of its true goals.