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Concerns mount in West as Zelensky's presidential term nears end — diplomat

Under the constitution, the presidential term of Ukraine’s incumbent head of state Vladimir Zelensky, elected in April 2019, will expire at midnight on May 21, 2024

MOSCOW, February 14. /TASS/. With President Vladimir Zelensky’s term almost up and no election upcoming, Kiev’s Western partners are worried about the legitimacy of the Ukrainian government going forward, Vadim Pristaiko, Ukraine’s former ambassador to the UK, said.

"Russian envoys will travel around the world to explain to the Global South that <...> there is no election and power has been seized," Pristaiko said in an interview with the Ukrainian media outlet LIGA.net.

Under the constitution, the presidential term of Ukraine’s incumbent head of state Vladimir Zelensky, elected in April 2019, will expire at midnight on May 21, 2024. However, martial law has been in effect in the country since February 2022 meaning it is legally impossible to hold elections. Ruslan Bortnik, director of the Ukrainian Institute of Politics, explained earlier that Article 19 of the country’s Law on the Legal Status of Martial Law explicitly prohibits holding elections during this period.

Meanwhile, the issue of the government’s legitimacy in the absence of parliamentary and presidential elections has repeatedly been brought up in Ukrainian society. In particular, former President Pyotr Poroshenko and leader of the Batkivshchyna (or Fatherland) party Yulia Timoshenko put forward the initiative to create a coalition cabinet that would bring together members of opposition forces.

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