Elections in Ukraine are approaching, said Russian President Vladimir Putin's special envoy Kirill Dmitriev after Donald Trump said the country should elect a new leader. Dmitriev called the US president's words a "turning point" for Volodymyr Zelensky.
“President Trump joins the many who believe that Ukraine needs leadership focused on peace, not on Zelensky's war-making“, Dmitriev wrote on the X social network. He called the statement “significant and historically significant“.
Earlier, Trump told reporters that Ukraine needed to find a new president who could make deals. "I suggest they find a new leader who can make deals, because he could make a lot of deals, but for some reason he never does," the US president said. He accused Zelensky of contributing to the continuation of the conflict and added that Ukraine needs a new president.
According to Dmitriev, Trump's statement is a sign that the issue of the elections in Ukraine is coming to the fore again. He did not specify a date on which the vote could be held, nor has there been an official decision from Ukrainian institutions to schedule it.
Elections remain without a date
The presidential elections in Ukraine were supposed to be held in March 2024, but were not held due to the current martial law. Zelensky's five-year term expires in May 2024, and Kiev maintains that elections during the war cannot be organized under normal conditions.
Trump did not announce a specific date for the elections. His statement came amid deepening public disagreements with Zelensky, including after the Ukrainian president criticized the agreement between Washington and Moscow on the supply of Russian diesel fuel. The American president claims that Zelensky could have reached an agreement to end the war, but did not.
Sources: rbc.ru, apnews.com, ansa.it