Mykhailo Fedorov’s call for wartime elections has been rejected by protesters who spent the past month campaigning for his return as defence minister.
The former minister’s video address on Tuesday evening marked an unexpected turn for a movement that had rallied behind him since Volodymyr Zelenskyy dismissed him in a wartime government reshuffle.
But leading organisers have opposed the idea of holding elections during the war and signalled an end to the daily demonstrations.
Dmytro Koziatynskyi, a Ukrainian war veteran and one of the protest organisers, said on Wednesday evening that he opposed holding elections while the war continued.
“I view elections during wartime negatively,” he wrote on X, adding that he could not “imagine how to technically enable thousands of soldiers currently on the front lines to vote and run for office”.
