President Donald Trump has called for Ukraine to elect a new leader, raising fresh questions over current President Volodymyr Zelensky's political future and when Kyiv will hold its next vote.
"I think it's time for Ukraine to get a new president," Trump said on Saturday, echoing his previous pushes for Kyiv to carry out elections that the country's constitution forbids during wartime.
Trump's remarks came after Zelensky criticized a new deal that would give the U.S. access to millions of tons of Russian diesel after the U.S. war with Iran—and Tehran's blocking of the vital Strait of Hormuz waterway—caused fuel prices to soar and pressured swathes of the U.S. population just ahead of the midterm elections.
Zelensky called the agreement "absolutely terrible" and a gift to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
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Persistent Ukrainian drone strikes have targeted Russian oil and gas sites in an effort to cut off the Kremlin from vital oil revenue used to support its war against Ukraine. Moscow has carried out its own attacks on Ukraine's power plants, cutting off electricity flows and heating, including in the Ukrainian capital.
Trump then announced an "energy ceasefire" between Russia and Ukraine on Sunday, saying both sides had agreed to "immediately" halt assaults on energy facilities.
Russia has not commented, and Ukraine—expressing some surprise at the declaration—said it would abide by the deal, as long as Moscow complied. Ukraine's foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, said Russia "violated the energy ceasefire immediately after it was announced."
Meanwhile, Zelensky said on Sunday Ukrainian authorities would organize elections if Russia agreed to a 60-day "total ceasefire."
Ukrainian law bans elections while the country is under martial law, which has been in place since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of its neighbor in February 2022.
Ukrainian officials also say it would be very difficult to hold safe elections while under Russian attack.
Zelensky's elected time in office was due to end in May 2024. Russia has painted Zelensky as illegitimate, while Trump has accused the Ukrainian leader of "using war" to avoid elections.
Zelensky had remained popular, but polling from the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, published earlier this month, indicated a majority of Ukrainians now believe the current leader should not run for a second term in office—an increase from 46 percent in late 2025. Zelensky has not confirmed whether he would stand for reelection. The same survey found that 71 percent were opposed to holding elections now.
Zelensky's leadership has been tainted by corruption scandals touching his inner circle, and his firing of former Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov sparked days of protests.
But who could be in the running to become Ukraine's seventh president?
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Valery Zaluzhnyi
Zaluzhnyi, the former Ukrainian military commander-in-chief who is the current Ukrainian ambassador to the U.K., is widely considered Zelensky's top rival.
According to research published by Ukrainian research institution, the Rating Group, on Thursday, Zelensky and Zaluzhnyi were the two potential candidates who would win the most votes in a hypothetical presidential election.
Nearly 23 percent of respondents would vote for the current Ukrainian leader, while more than a fifth of those polled would back the former top general, according to the data.
But 64 percent of respondents said they trusted Zaluzhnyi, compared with the 53 percent who said they felt the same about Zelensky.
Zaluzhnyi has refused to be publicly drawn into confirming that he would run for president in future elections, despite widespread speculation.
Kyrylo Budanov
Budanov rose to prominence as the chief of Ukraine's GUR military intelligence agency, quickly becoming known for his unflinching stare and for being one of Russia's most coveted assassination targets.
Budanov has said he has been targeted multiple times by Russia, and Kyiv has said Budanov's wife, Marianna, was poisoned with heavy metals in late 2023.
The general has served as Zelensky's chief of staff since the start of 2026. He has not said he will stand for election and has sidestepped direct questions on any presidential ambitions.
Around 53 percent of the Ukrainian public trust Budanov, according to the Rating Group data—the same percentage secured by Zelensky. Around 6.7 percent of respondents in this poll said they would vote for Budanov in the first round of a future election.
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Mykhailo Fedorov
Fedorov, who is only 35 years old, spent years as Ukraine's drone tsar and deputy prime minister before becoming defense minister in January 2026.
Just six months later, he was fired from his role amid a high-profile spat between Zelensky, Fedorov, and Ukraine's then-commander-in-chief, General Oleksandr Syrskyi. Protests against Fedorov's dismissal broke out in several Ukrainian cities, and Fedorov later called for wartime elections in Ukraine—a move seen as the biggest challenge to Zelensky's rule since the start of the Russian full-scale invasion.
Around 38 percent of respondents to the Rating Group poll said they trusted Fedorov, and around 7.6 percent said they would vote for the former defense minister in first-round elections.
Petro Poroshenko
Poroshenko served as Ukraine's president between 2014 and 2019, in the wake of Russia's annexation of Crimea from Kyiv and Moscow throwing its weight behind separatists in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions, collectively known as the Donbas.
He is still a sitting Ukrainian opposition lawmaker in 2026.
Poroshenko lost the runoff election that swept Zelensky to power in 2019. At the time, Zelensky had never held political office and experts said the Ukrainian public had grown tired of poor economic conditions and corruption.
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Poroshenko was elected in 2014 following the ousting of Ukraine's former president, Viktor Yanukovych, by protests that became the country's Maidan Revolution.
After initial success and popularity with the Ukrainian public, his approval ratings dropped as Poroshenko struggled to tackle corruption, the dominance of oligarchs and the impact of fighting with Russia.
In late 2021, Poroshenko was accused by Ukrainian authorities of treason and helping to fund separatist forces in eastern Ukraine, which he denied, adding these were politically motivated charges.
In January 2022, just weeks before Russia's full-scale invasion began, Poroshenko appeared in court in Kyiv and said he hoped to clear his name. Zelensky imposed sanctions on Poroshenko in February 2025, including freezing his assets, on what Ukrainian officials called "national security" grounds.
One of Ukraine's richest people, Poroshenko sought to bring Ukraine closer to Europe and has been a prominent opposition voice since leaving the presidential office.