MOSCOW, October 14. /TASS/. The West is tired of hearing about the illegitimacy of the Ukrainian government, so it is putting pressure on the authorites to hold a presidential election by next spring, former Ukrainian Prime Minister Nikolay Azarov said.

"Elections in Ukraine are likely slated to take place early or late spring," Azarov said. "But they will happen, because the current situation, with Zelensky losing his mandate and the so-called Rada (the Ukrainian parliament - TASS) losing theirs, cannot be tolerated for long by the West. The West doesn't like this situation. There are too many questions coming from outside, so the elections must be held," the politician said.

Azarov added that he expects Zelensky to run in the election, whenever it happens. "Zelensky himself plans to run in the election, taking into account that now he still has some chance of being re-elected," he pointed out. "In true totalitarian style, he can rig the election, and claim that he won. This is his last chance," Azarov emphasized.

The former prime minister explained that in order to have any chance at being re-elected, Zelensky needs to show success on the battlefield, and to do that, he will try to increase mobilization. "He needs at least some successes, at least one village, at least one small town. That's what the forced mobilization is for," he said.

Rumors about preparations for elections in Ukraine

On September 30, Verkhovna Rada lawmaker Oksana Savchuk pointed to the fact that the Ukrainian Central Election Commission recently issued a decree on the ordering of polling stations, which may indicate that the country is preparing for elections. Later, some experts said that this was just routine commission work.

After all the deadlines for parliamentary and presidential elections, which the Ukrainian authorities insist cannot be held under martial law, had passed, the issue seemed to have faded into the background. On September 19, however, the RBC-Ukraine news agency quoted its sources as saying that Washington was "directly telling" Kiev to prepare for next year's elections, possibly as early as late next spring. Recently, Verkhovna Rada lawmaker Alexey Goncharenko (listed as a terrorist and extremist by Russia's Federal Service for Financial Monitoring) said that the deputy head of the presidential administration, Viktor Mikita, had discussed this issue with the leaders of regional organizations of the pro-presidential Servant of the People party. The lawmaker did not specify whether he was referring to parliamentary or presidential elections.

Ukraine’s parliamentary elections were scheduled for the end of October 2023, while the presidential election was supposed to be held in March 2024. In this situation, the question of the legitimacy of the current government is regularly raised in the country, as according to the constitution, Zelensky's powers expired on the night of May 21. Many experts say that in the event of martial law, only the powers of the Verkhovna Rada are extended, not those of the head of state. Zelensky, meanwhile, has repeatedly dismissed the legitimacy issue.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that Ukraine is now downplaying the May 2014 ruling by its own Constitutional Court that the presidential term cannot be extended. According to Putin, this means that Zelensky's presidential term "has expired along with his legitimacy, which cannot be restored by any tricks.".