Martial law in Ukraine in the context of "Russo-Ukrainian war (2022–present)"

Ukrainian presidential elections determine who will serve as the President of Ukraine for the next five years.

Since the establishment of the position of the President of Ukraine in 1991, presidential elections have taken place seven times: in 1991, 1994, 1999, 2004, 2010, 2014 and 2019. The next election would have been scheduled for 2024; however, it was not held because of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine ongoing since 24 February 2022 and the resulting imposition of martial law in Ukraine, under which elections legally cannot be held.

The Ukrainian refugee crisis began with the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. As of September 2025, the UNHCR has recorded 5.7 million Ukrainian refugees around the world, with 90% of this figure residing in various European countries outside of Ukraine. Older reports by the International Organization for Migration in May 2022 show approximately eight million Ukrainians as internally displaced persons. By 20 March 2022, nearly one-quarter of Ukraine's total population had been displaced due to active military hostilities with Russia. About 90% of all Ukrainian refugees are women and children; by 24 March, more than half of all children in Ukraine had left their homes, of whom a quarter had left the country as well. Men between the ages of 18 and 60 have been banned from leaving the country under Ukrainian martial law, which came into force a few hours into Russia's first military offensive into Ukraine. This ongoing escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War has caused the largest refugee crisis in the 21st century and the fourth-largest refugee crisis in modern history as a whole, with the highest refugee flight rate globally. It is also the first European refugee crisis since the Yugoslav Wars in the 1990s and the largest one to have occurred in Europe since World War II.

The vast majority of Ukrainian refugees initially entered neighbouring countries to the west of Ukraine (Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Moldova). Around three million of these people then moved further west to other European countries. As of May 2025, the UNHCR reports that the countries in which the largest numbers of Ukrainians had applied for asylum, or other temporary protection, are Germany (1.2 million), Poland (1 million), and the Czech Republic (0.4 million). As of September 2022, Human Rights Watch has documented that Ukrainian civilians, particularly children, have been forcibly transferred to Russia. The OHCHR has corroborated this claim, stating that "There have been credible allegations of forced transfers of unaccompanied children to Russian-occupied territory, or to the Russian Federation itself." The United States Department of State estimated that at least 900,000 Ukrainian citizens (including children) were forcibly transferred to Russia in the first six months after the invasion. Around the same time in late 2022, more than 4.5 million Ukrainians had returned to Ukraine, owing to the withdrawal of Russian troops from all fronts but the Donbas and parts of southern Ukraine.

Presidential elections were scheduled to be held in Ukraine in March or April 2024. However, as martial law has been in effect since 24 February 2022 in response to the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, no elections were held because Ukrainian law does not allow presidential elections to be held when martial law is in effect. Martial law has been extended in 90-day intervals since the full-scale invasion with parliament's approval, and has most recently (as of November 2025) been extended for the 17th time until 3 February 2026.

On 25 September 2025, Zelenskyy stated in an interview with Axios that he was "ready" to not run again after the war's conclusion. On 15 December 2025, Zelenskyy said in an interview with ZDF that he would run if the next election was held during the war, but was unsure if he would run in peacetime.