‘I will’: Zaluzhnyi reportedly tells Zelensky he’ll run for president if Ukraine holds elections this fall

Volodymyr Zelensky met with Valerii Zaluzhnyi — Ukraine’s former army commander-in-chief, now serving as the country’s ambassador to the United Kingdom — at the presidential residence on Bankova Street in Kyiv.

Zaluzhnyi had been summoned from London shortly before British Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced his resignation. After the two discussed that situation, Zelensky turned to the subject of elections in Ukraine, sources close to both men told the Ukrainian news outlet Ukrainska Pravda.

According to those sources, Zelensky opened by saying that the front had been developing positively of late, that society remained fairly united, and that a “window of opportunity” had therefore emerged for holding a presidential election. He said the vote would need to be conducted in a way that did not fracture the country — and that it was therefore necessary to avoid a potential confrontation between himself and Zaluzhnyi.

At the end of the meeting, the president reportedly asked the former commander-in-chief directly whether, if elections were held in the fall, he would run. And, according to Ukrainska Pravda’s sources, he received an unambiguous answer: “Yes. I will.”

Zelensky had been prepared to discuss virtually any government post with Zaluzhnyi, sources told Ukrainska Pravda, but after that answer he stopped making offers. Zaluzhnyi said he had not sought a political career, but that many people placed their hopes in him and he would not be able to explain “why he should disregard the trust placed in him.” The meeting ended there.

Shortly afterward, two more presidential envoys met with Zaluzhnyi, who had remained in Kyiv: Rustem Umerov, secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, and Davyd Arakhamia, head of the presidential faction in the Verkhovna Rada. They repeated Zelensky’s arguments about the risk of a societal split, but Zaluzhnyi’s position did not change. As they parted, Umerov and Arakhamia nonetheless asked Zaluzhnyi, as Ukrainska Pravda writes, to think it over some more, addressing him as brother.

Zaluzhnyi’s approval rating remains high, journalists note, but no longer carries the momentum it had immediately after he was dismissed as commander-in-chief in February 2024. Meanwhile, the rating of another likely presidential candidate who could challenge Zelensky — Kyrylo Budanov, head of the presidential office — is rising.

Around the same time, Ukrainska Pravda reports, Zelensky held a separate meeting with Budanov, Umerov, Arakhamia, Deputy Head of the Presidential Office Oleh Tatarov, and Ukrainian Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov. The discussion focused on whether to hold a presidential election, and if so, when and with whom.

In that meeting, Ukrainska Pravda notes, Zelensky drew on private polling from June — the first surveys to record a small but steady uptick in his approval after months of decline. The polls showed that in a first round, roughly 33% of voters who had already made up their minds were prepared to vote for Zelensky, about 22% for Zaluzhnyi, and nearly 14% for Budanov. In a second round, however, polling cited by Ukrainska Pravda’s sources showed Zelensky losing to Zaluzhnyi — approximately 32% against 37% — while in a runoff against Budanov he would win, but by a very narrow margin.