Trump envoy announces Ukraine has agreed to hold presidential elections

US President Donald Trump's special envoy, Steve Witkoff, claimed that Kiev has "agreed" to organize presidential elections in Ukraine, without providing details or evidence to support his claim.

In an interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, Witkoff declared that "there will be elections in Ukraine," adding that the war-torn country's leadership had "agreed with it."

It is learned that the Trump administration has increased pressure to force Ukraine to organize elections during wartime, which the country is constitutionally prohibited from doing, writes Politico, the Telegraph reports.

The US president has described his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky, as a "dictator without an election".

Critics say wartime elections would expose Ukraine to Russia's destabilizing tactics and would be a logistical nightmare to organize in a country defending itself from an all-out invasion.

In the same interview, Witkoff also addressed Ukraine's potential entry into the NATO military alliance, which Russia strongly opposes.

"If there is going to be a peace agreement, Ukraine cannot be a member of NATO. I think that is widely accepted," Witkoff said.

But the US envoy suggested that Ukraine could still benefit from similar security guarantees offered to NATO states under the alliance's Article 5 collective defence clause, by which its members are obliged to provide assistance to each other if one of them is attacked.

"I think it's open to discussion," the US special envoy said, without giving further details. /Telegraph/