US pushing Ukraine to hold presidential, parliamentary elections by yearend: Report

The administration of US President Donald Trump is reportedly pushing Ukraine to hold elections by the end of the year amid attempts to broker a truce agreement between Kiev and Moscow to end the protracted war in the coming months.

Keith Kellogg, Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, said in an interview with Reuters that Ukrainian presidential and parliamentary elections, which have been 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.”

Two people with knowledge of the matter also were reported by Reuters as saying that Kellogg and other White House officials had discussed pushing Ukraine to agree to elections as part of any initial truce with Russia.

Trump and Kellogg have both said they are working on a plan to mediate a deal in the first several months of the new US administration to end the all-out war that broke out following Russia’s “special military operation” in February 2022.

The plan is yet to be clarified and it remains unclear how the plan would be received within Ukraine for ending the deadliest conflict in Europe since World War Two.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy previously said Kiev could hold elections this year if the fighting ends and strong security guarantees are in place to deter Russia from renewing hostilities.

Zelenskyy’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.

Ukrainian officials have reportedly pushed back on elections in conversations with Washington in recent months, saying that hosting polls at such a volatile moment would divide Ukrainian leaders and potentially invite Russian influence campaigns.

West ‘prevented’ Ukraine from signing 2022 peace deal with Russia: Slovak PM

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has revealed that the West sabotaged the signing of an agreement by Ukraine that would terminate the war in the former Soviet Republic as early as 2022.

Trump, who has for long boasted of his political clout to put an end to the Ukraine war, threatened Russia with tariff hikes and more sanctions last Wednesday if Moscow did not agree to a ceasefire deal with Kiev.

Trump also claimed that his Ukrainian counterpart had told him he wanted a peace agreement to end the war.

Russia launched its “special military operation” in Ukraine in February 2022 partly to prevent NATO’s eastward expansion after warning that the US-led military alliance was following an “aggressive line” against Moscow.

Washington and its Western allies have flooded Ukraine with a vast volume of Western arms and ammunition since then despite Moscow’s calls that the move would only prolong the conflict.

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