World News
Zelensky says an election fought during the war would split Ukraine
By Staff Writer | 24 August 2026
His first public account of the rift with the dismissed defence minister came in a transcript released on Sunday. He also set out how far Patriot interceptor deliveries have fallen.
Holding an election in Ukraine while the fighting continues would split the country, President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his first public account of the dispute with Mykhailo Fedorov, the defence minister he dismissed last month. The remarks came in a two hour meeting with reporters on Saturday, a transcript of which was released on Sunday.
I believe elections during a war like this would generally pose enormous risks. Holding elections right now would be a tsunami for the state that would split Ukraine apart
Volodymyr Zelensky, President of Ukraine
Elections in wartime are prohibited by Ukrainian law. Fedorov's removal set off weeks of street demonstrations, and he later called for a poll, the first such demand from a major figure in Ukrainian politics since the full scale invasion of 2022. Zelensky said he had offered him four ways of staying in government and that all four were turned down.
I really had and still have a very positive attitude toward Mykhailo. We have been through a lot together. But I believe that he himself goes, or is pushed, into the wrong things
Volodymyr Zelensky, President of Ukraine
An election in wartime might be possible if partners could guarantee the security of it, he said, but nobody has put forward a plan for how a poll could be held safely and legitimately. A survey taken on 5 August by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology found 57 per cent of Ukrainians want a vote only once the fighting has ended.
Interceptor deliveries down as strikes rise
Zelensky put numbers on the air defence problem. Ukraine received 675 Patriot interceptors in 2023, 364 in 2025, and expects 264 this year. He said he wanted 300 more for the coming winter, and that the air force had asked for 360. Production capacity in the United States and in Europe is the constraint, and he said he hoped to obtain even five or ten per cent of United States reserves and could pay for them.
By his estimate Russia could eventually build up to 1,300 ballistic missiles a year, against a current capacity he put at 600.
On the ground he was more positive. Ukrainian forces have almost cleared the Dnipropetrovsk region, with about ten square kilometres still held. Since the start of the year, he said, Russia has taken about 990 square kilometres and Ukraine has restored about 820, and he expects the two figures to draw level by the end of the year. Moscow's main effort remains the axis running through Kostiantynivka, Sloviansk and Kramatorsk.
The money behind the war
He also described a 27 billion dollar shortfall at the defence ministry after spending decisions earlier in the year pulled forward funds meant for the second half. That is the kind of number that reaches procurement schedules rather than battlefields, and it sets the pace at which contracts are let.
For firms holding reconstruction mandates, or weighing one, the political question and the budget question are the same question. A wartime poll would put every ministry counterparty in play for months. The president has now said plainly that he will not hold one, which removes an uncertainty that sat over every programme with a Ukrainian public body at the other end of it.