Mariana Budjeryn, senior researcher at the Center for Nuclear Security Policy (CNSP), analyzes the state of Ukraine’s political system amidst the war and how international perceptions of it could affect ongoing peace talks.
A mourner holds flowers on Valentine's Day at the Lychakiv Military Cemetery in Lviv, on February 14, 2026, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Over the past three decades, Ukraine’s political system has evolved in sharp contrast to Russia’s. Power in Ukraine has been dispersed rather than centralized and shared among multiple stakeholders, including a diverse and flourishing civil society. Ukraine’s capacity for societal mobilization and self-organization proved critical in repelling the initial thrust of Russia’s full-scale invasion and in continuing to support the defense effort. At the same time, the necessary centralization of decision making in the hands of the executive, the marginalization of the legislature, and the suspension of peacetime democratic procedures, such as elections, in wartime, put unprecedented pressure on Ukrainian society to maintain cohesion while finding alternative ways to keep its officials accountable.
Ukraine’s society has proved it can and will mobilize around political issues, with the fight against corruption in the halls of state power first among them. Last summer, attempts by the Zelenskyy government to curtail the independence of Ukraine’s anti-corruption institutions were halted by widespread popular protests—the first significant expression of public disapproval since February 2022. With their autonomy preserved, the anti-corruption institutions continued their investigations and exposed a massive corruption scheme, prompting important personnel changes in the office of the president, including the removal of Andriy Yermak, the powerful head of the presidential office.
Ukraine’s friends and foes would do well to keep this aspect of Ukraine’s political system in mind, especially in the context of ongoing negotiations over a peace deal. It is unnecessary and patronizing to push the issue of presidential elections in Ukraine in these peace talks—Ukrainians will insist on the elections themselves the moment security situation in the country allows, and President Zelenskyy has already pledged as much. Whatever is agreed by a handful of men in Abu Dhabi or elsewhere will have to find broad-based support among the Ukrainians, who, bled and exhausted though they are, are determined to safeguard their dignity and liberty from internal and external threats alike.
