In a surprise announcement on February 10, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, said that his administration was preparing to hold presidential elections in Ukraine before the middle of May. Alongside the elections, a referendum on a peace deal with Russia is also likely to be held.
This is a dramatic shift in Zelensky’s stance: the president had long resisted elections under conditions of war despite the fact that his mandate ran out in 2024. One possible explanation for the turn-around is that US pressure on Ukraine is having some real effects now. A few days ago, Zelensky himself indicated as much, saying that his US counterpart, Donald Trump, was pushing for a negotiated end to the war by June.
Trump’s timeline — probably with an eye towards mid-term elections in the US where the White House would like to present a Ukraine deal as another major foreign-policy success — is one thing. The feasibility of elections and even more so of a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine is quite another one.
In fact, there are so many uncertainties about both that whatever plan Trump’s team around Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner has dreamed up will very likely unravel very quickly.
The first problem is all about the logistics of the elections.
Who will be eligible to vote and where, and who might monitor the elections to ensure that they are free and fair? Apart from the hundreds of thousands serving in the trenches defending Ukraine against Russia’s aggression, there are also 3.7 million internally displaced Ukrainians and almost 6 million refugees abroad. And then there are the approximately 5 million Ukrainians currently living under Russian occupation.
Add to this the uncertainty over a Russian ceasefire to facilitate not only the conduct of the elections themselves but also of a free and fair election campaign, and the prospects of organising any vote, let alone one of such consequence for the country and its people, look worse than daunting.
In addition, there is the near-certainty of large-scale Russian election interference, similar to what Moldova experienced during its presidential elections and European integration referendum in 2024, and again during parliamentary elections in 2025. Russian attempts to influence the outcomes of all of these votes in Moldova were shown to have clear limitations, but this will not deter Russia from trying again, and harder, in Ukraine.
A second problem is the feasibility of any peace deal between Russia and Ukraine.
At present, it is hard to imagine that the gaps between Russia and Ukraine can be bridged in a meaningful way that does not cross either side’s red lines — especially on territory and on security guarantees.
And even if it were possible to find a form of words to which the Russian and Ukrainian presidents could both sign up, the third problem is the approval of any such deal in a referendum in Ukraine.
Likely to be held on the same day as the presidential elections, a referendum would face all the same logistical pressures. What is more, the question of who would be eligible to cast their vote would be even more acute. How legal and legitimate would the result be if large numbers of eligible people were not able to participate? This will be a particularly challenging question for those Ukrainians who currently live under Russian occupation. Their fate would most likely be determined in a referendum in which they had no say.
Nor is it clear what would happen if a majority of Ukrainians rejected the settlement put to them in the referendum. Would it mean a return to negotiations? Possibly. Or an immediate resumption of the war? Probably.
A third option would be the continuation of a shaky ceasefire and the implementation of parts of any settlement beneficial to both sides, such as prisoner exchanges. As was the case with the ill-fated Minsk agreements of 2014 and 2015, a return to all-out war, however, would remain firmly in the cards.
So far, Ukraine’s European partners have mostly been on the sidelines of negotiations. They may not be a direct party to the war, but they clearly have a stake in the peace terms that might now be hammered out between Moscow, Kyiv and Washington.
The mostly European coalition of the willing is expected to play a key role in the implementation of American-backed security guarantees and to do the heavy lifting on Ukraine’s post-war reconstruction.
After more than 12 months of hostility from Washington towards Brussels, there is little trust left in the dependability of US backing for Ukraine.
The fourth problem, therefore, is that European acquiescence to a US-imposed peace deal cannot anymore be taken for granted.
This does not necessarily mean that a deal is impossible, but it will almost certainly be so without Europe having played a part in its negotiation.
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, recently dispatched a senior diplomat to Moscow for talks in the Kremlin. And the country’s former permanent representative on the UN Security Council, Nicolas de Rivière, has been appointed as the new French ambassador to Moscow. This clearly signals the importance that Paris assigns to direct contacts with Russia.
The EU, according to its foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, might also appoint a special representative for contacts with Moscow — but of course only after the bloc has agreed on the messages it wants to send, which could take some time. But despite the fact that Brussels holds some powerful cards, including frozen Russian assets and a wide range of sanctions, there is no indication for now that either Washington or Moscow are willing to grant the EU a seat at the table.
The fifth and final problem is whether Russia will accept even the best possible terms in a peace agreement and stick to it.
The US push to seal a deal in the coming months suggests that there is some confidence in the White House that a deal acceptable to the Kremlin can be forged and that Ukraine and its allies can be coerced into going along with it.
There is a lot in what has transpired over the last few days that will be much to the liking of Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin: the promise of presidential elections in Ukraine, the US using its support for security guarantees as leverage to push Kyiv towards accepting more and more compromises, and the parallel US-Russia negotiations on an economic deal.
Putin has got to this situation without making any concessions. He has played his US counterpart perfectly so far, and there is no indication that he is done playing him. Trump is almost certain to continue to do Putin’s bidding. If and when his grandiose plan unravels, he is more likely to walk away than to put pressure on the Russian president.
It is not clear what the back-up plan is for Zelensky and his European allies.
Given that there is little to suggest that the current American plan and timeline for a deal will lead to a happy ending, they need to come up with, and act on, credible contingencies very soon.
Offering logistically almost impossible elections and a referendum with a highly uncertain outcome would be a smart way for the Ukrainian president and his European allies to buy themselves the time they need for a new strategy.
Putin may think that he has successfully tricked Trump into doing his bidding. But on this occasion, Zelensky may have outsmarted them both, albeit at the price of the war against his country continuing.
An earlier version of this analysis was published by The Conversation on February 12, 2026.
We hope you’ll share Navigating the Vortex with anyone you think might find it of interest. Also, you can listen to our podcast editions via the website and on all major podcast platforms, including:
