The Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council rules out the possibility of holding elections in Ukraine during active hostilities stage
Oleksiy Danilov, Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, believes that as long as the active phase of military operations continues in Ukraine, it is impossible to hold elections at such backdrop.
He stressed this point this during a special event of the Kyiv Security Forum, established by the Arseniy Yatsenyuk’s “Open Ukraine” Foundation.
According to him, first of all, as a democratic country, Ukraine should ensure every citizen’s right to vote, but under current conditions it is extremely difficult to achieve. Moreover, russia can use the election time to destabilize Ukraine internally.
“The russian federation is incapable to defeat our country militarily. They have only one chance left – our internal destabilization. Holding elections under current conditions is a matter of internal destabilization,” he said.
“Elections mean competition of standpoints and visions, extensive discussions, finding out the direction for the country to pursue, and it is also true of elections to the Verkhovna Rada (Ukrainian Parliament). It is difficult to predict how election debates unfold at the backdrop of war, and it is crystal clear that Russia will attempt to take advantage of this situation through its agent network which has not yet been completely uprooted. Impressively and vastly uprooted, but not yet completely,” Mr. Danilov added.
He also reminded the audience certain statements citing the example of Israel. Still, according to Mr. Danilov, Israel is not engaged in an active phase of the war, so it is possible to hold free elections in Israel.
“We need to preserve this country, to preserve it within our territory. You may be aware that on September 10, the russian federation plans to hold its dances with tambourines in the occupied territories, which has nothing to do with democracy or election processes. If one talks about democracy, then definitely it is not at the time of war,” he concluded.
The Kyiv Security Forum, established by the Arseniy Yatsenyuk’s “Open Ukraine” Foundation, is the main platform in this country for discussing issues of war and peace, national and global security.
