Ukraine: if elections are held this spring, who might be the next president?

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, is underneath intense strain from the US to take his nation to the polls as early as this spring. Donald Trump is demanding elections as a situation for American safety ensures for Ukraine towards any future Russian invasion.

Zelensky has confronted persistent calls from Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and at instances from Trump as properly, to carry an election. His time period expired in 2024, however the nation’s structure forbids elections throughout wartime. So to schedule a ballot can even imply a constitutional change to allow it.

But when the US president will get his method and elections are held later this yr, whoever wins and turns into Ukraine’s subsequent president will likely be confronted with the duty of managing a rustic at warfare and maybe steering the nation in the direction of an unsure peace.

It’s arduous to foretell who would possibly stand for the presidency – underneath the present circumstances, nobody is declaring their candidacy. But it surely’s affordable to imagine that Zelensky would put himself ahead for a second time period. In that case, he can’t be anticipating to coast to victory as he did in 2019 when he gained greater than 74% of the favored vote.

Whereas Zelensky has been celebrated within the west as a hero for his wartime management, his reputation has been broken by a sequence of corruption scandals. In November 2025, a number of authorities officers and enterprise leaders with shut connections to Zelensky – together with the justice minister and a former prime minister – have been accused of stealing US$100 million (£73 million) from Ukraine’s vitality sector by Ukraine’s anti-corruption businesses.

Just some months earlier, in July, widespread protests erupted towards a brand new legislation that might place those self same anti-corruption businesses underneath the management of an official appointed by Zelensky. This transfer was broadly seen as an try and allow the president to cease any inconvenient investigations of their tracks and defend his associates from prosecution.

Zelensky acted rapidly to distance himself from each of those scandals. He reversed the controversial laws in the summertime and has referred to as for the resignation of serving officers named within the vitality corruption investigation. However these occasions have tarnished his status at dwelling.

In line with surveys carried out by the Kyiv Worldwide Institute of Sociology, belief in Zelensky dropped from 74% in Could 2025 to 59% in December. Though incumbents in different nations would possibly look with envy at these figures, solely 26% “utterly” belief him and want to see him proceed as president. The remainder indicated that they would favor a change on the prime of Ukraine’s political management. That stated, a latest ballot had his assist at 30.9%, with just one different potential candidate inside touching distance.

That potential candidate is Valerii Zaluzhnyi, whose is usually described as a possible chief and whose assist was measured at 27.7% within the ballot talked about above. Presently Ukraine’s ambassador to the UK, Zaluzhnyi owes his excessive profile to his former place as head of Ukraine’s armed forces. He served in that position from 2021 till Zelensky changed him in February 2024.

The official motive Zelensky gave for the dismissal was the necessity for brand spanking new concepts within the navy, however there was a suspicion that Zaluzhnyi, broadly considered a warfare hero for main the resistance to Russia’s mass invasion, was changing into too widespread. Certainly, a ballot carried out in July 2025 discovered that 73% of Ukrainians stated they trusted him, making him the nation’s most trusted public determine. Zaluzhnyi has refused to be drawn on whether or not he would possibly stand for the presidency, however there’s widespread hypothesis that he’s merely biding his time.

One other potential candidate whose status was constructed by his wartime management is Kyrylo Budanov. Lately appointed by Zelensky as his chief of employees, Budanov led Ukraine’s navy intelligence since 2020 and is credited with its efficient use of drones to strike targets deep into Russian territory in addition to Russian-occupied Ukraine. Like Zaluzhnyi, Budanov has not indicated that he would stand for elected workplace. Not like Zaluzhnyi, Budanov has not made a breakthrough within the polls.

Veteran political rivals

A couple of veterans of previous presidential campaigns would possibly throw their hats into the ring once more, though neither is more likely to be a entrance runner.

Petro Poroshenko was Ukraine’s president earlier than Zelensky, serving from 2014 till 2019. Since 2021 he has been combating fees of treason and, extra lately, has been positioned underneath sanction by Zelensky.

Expenses towards him concentrate on alleged pro-Russian political and financial pursuits, akin to his reference to the now-banned Social gathering of the Areas and his slowness to dump his belongings in Russia and Russian-occupied Ukraine. He denies any wrongdoing and has referred to as the sanctions “politically motivated” and “unconstitutional”.

Yulia Tymoshenko was a number one determine in Ukraine’s 2004 Orange Revolution. She is a former prime minister, chief of the “Fatherhood” political occasion and a populist politician who has a powerful following amongst rural voters, particularly older ladies.

However she has lately been charged with providing bribes to lawmakers in what has been reported as an try and undermine the ruling Servant of the Folks Social gathering. She denies the costs. She is just polling within the single digits.

Issues with a wartime election

You will need to do not forget that Moscow calls for recent elections in Ukraine as a situation of any peace deal. It’s unlikely that Russia expects a pro-Russian candidate to achieve success and take the nation in a extra Russia-friendly path. However your complete means of holding honest elections in Ukraine anytime quickly is fraught with difficulties that might supply alternatives for Russia to use.

For instance, the organisational problem of making correct electoral registers that embrace the hundreds of thousands of displaced Ukrainians – a lot of them dwelling overseas – would invite challenges to the equity of the election and the legitimacy of the outcomes.

The political divisions that inevitably come to the floor throughout election campaigns would supply preferrred grounds for stirring up dissension and dissatisfaction – a well-established observe undertaken by the Russian safety companies – and thereby undermining the solidarity of Ukrainian society.

So no matter who turns into Ukraine’s subsequent president, if the election goes forward within the coming months as Donald Trump is demanding, the winner in a broader sense could also be Russia.