Elon Musk on Tuesday called for Ukraine to hold an election, shortly after Ukrainian lawmakers passed a resolution affirming Volodymyr Zelensky as president until after Ukraine’s war with Russia ends, as a feud escalates between Zelensky and President Donald Trump.
President Donald Trump previously attacked the Ukrainian president, saying Zelensky was a “dictator” ... [+]
Musk responded on X to a post saying the Ukrainian Parliament passed a resolution affirming Zelensky’s legitimacy as president under martial law, writing, “Hold an election.”
Zelensky, who won Ukraine’s last election in 2019 with 73% of the vote, has remained Ukraine’s president under martial law amid its war with Russia.
Ukrainian lawmakers reportedly approved the resolution with 268 of 280 votes, after an initial vote failed on Monday with Zelensky’s allies being largely absent from the vote, a Ukrainian parliament member told ABC News.
Zelensky reportedly said Sunday he would step down as Ukraine’s president if the move helped achieve peace with Russia or NATO membership for Ukraine, noting he had “no intention of staying in power for a decade.”
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Last week, Trump wrote on Truth Social suggesting Zelensky “better move fast” to achieve peace with Russia or “he is not going to have a country left.” Trump said Zelensky is a “dictator” who “refuses to have elections,” backing earlier demands from Russian President Vladimir Putin for Ukraine to hold elections before negotiating an end to the war. He previously made a series of false claims about Ukraine and Zelensky, including that Ukraine “should never have started the war” and that Zelensky has an approval rating of 4%. A February poll found 57% of Ukrainians trusted Zelensky, and the war sparked after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
Putin suggested Tuesday that if Ukraine held elections, Zelensky would have “zero chances” to be reelected, according to the Russian state-run outlet Tass. Putin also said Ukraine should lift martial law for an election, adding Zelensky would have “absolutely no chances to win” if the “election is not flagrantly rigged.”
Negotiations for peace between Ukraine and Russia have escalated in recent weeks, as the third anniversary of the conflict was passed Monday. Trump has shifted peace talks away from Ukraine, recently saying he didn’t think Zelensky was “very important to be at meetings” and “makes it very hard to make deals” in negotiations. Zelensky has accused Trump of having “helped Putin out” by holding talks without inviting Ukrainian officials, and Trump has said he believes Ukraine should have made more concessions to Russia to stop the war from happening. Zelensky has pushed back against the U.S. holding talks without Ukraine, telling NBC News he would “never accept any decisions between the United States and Russia about Ukraine.” Trump said he spoke with Putin on Feb. 12 to discuss “our readiness to work together at the team level,” marking the first contact between a sitting U.S. president and Putin in nearly three years. Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with his Russian counterpart earlier this month, during which the U.S. and Russia agreed to negotiate an end to the war “as soon as possible.” That meeting was expected to precede a meeting between Putin and Trump, though Russian officials said a meeting has not been scheduled.