Free and Fair
Wartime Elections
The announcement came on a Tuesday, delivered through the sterile language of diplomatic cables and press releases. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy read the statement three times, as if repetition might reveal some hidden meaning, some escape clause buried in the bureaucratic phrasing. There was none. The United States would suspend military aid until Ukraine demonstrated its commitment to democratic values by holding presidential elections. The deadline was four months away.
“He wants us to vote,” Zelenskyy said to the empty room. “While they shell Kharkiv. While Bakhmut burns. He wants us to vote.”
His phone buzzed. Kyrylo Budanov, the intelligence chief, had already begun preparing contingencies. Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the former commander now thrust into the role of reluctant candidate, had released a terse statement accepting his nomination. The machinery of democracy, that beautiful, cumbersome, impossibly fragile thing, was grinding back to life in the worst possible moment.
Zelenskyy walked to his window. Somewhere in the distance, he could hear the air raid sirens beginning their familiar wail.
Oksana Marchenko had been standing in line for six days.
The queue outside the Ukrainian embassy in Warsaw stretched for kilometers, a river of displaced humanity wrapped in winter coats and clutching documents. The Polish government had erected temporary shelters, but there were never enough. Oksana slept in shifts with her sister, one always holding their place while the other sought warmth in the overcrowded reception centers.
“They say it will be another week,” her sister Daryna reported, returning with watery coffee and stale bread. “Maybe two.”
“We could go back,” Oksana said. She didn’t mean it. There was nothing to go back to. Their village outside Mariupol existed now only in photographs and memories.
“And miss our chance to participate in democracy?” Daryna’s laugh was bitter, hollow. “The Americans insist. We must prove we are worthy of their bullets.”
Around them, the line shuffled forward. An elderly man collapsed near the front, and embassy staff rushed out with blankets. The temperature had dropped to minus fifteen the night before. Three people had died of exposure since the voting registration began, their bodies carried away quietly so as not to disturb the queue.
Oksana watched a mother trying to comfort a crying child, explaining that yes, they had to stay, yes, it was cold, but this was important. This was democracy.
“Do you know who you’ll vote for?” Daryna asked.
Oksana shook her head. Zelenskyy, Zaluzhnyi, Budanov. Three men she had seen only on screens, making promises and giving speeches while her country bled. What difference did it make? The shells would fall regardless of who signed the orders.
She pulled her coat tighter and watched her breath crystallize in the frozen air. Six more days, they said. Maybe two weeks.
She would wait.
Private Yevhen Kozak had not slept in thirty-seven hours.
His unit held a stretch of trenches east of Avdiivka, a position they had been promised would be reinforced three weeks ago. The reinforcements never came. What came instead was a truck bearing the official seal of the Central Election Commission, driven by a nervous young man who clearly had never been this close to the front.
“Ballots,” the driver announced, unloading cardboard boxes while mortar fire crackled in the distance. “And voter registration materials. Every soldier is required to participate.”
Sergeant Major Bondarenko, a career soldier with seventeen years of service and a face like weathered stone, stared at the boxes as if they might contain explosives.
“We requested ammunition,” he said slowly. “We have nineteen rounds per man. We requested medical supplies. Kozak here has been treating wounds with vodka and bedsheets. And you brought us ballots.”
The driver spread his hands helplessly. “Orders from Kyiv. The Americans are monitoring compliance. Every unit must achieve at least eighty percent voter participation.”
“Or what?” Bondarenko asked. “They’ll stop sending supplies? Look around. What supplies?”
A shell landed close enough to shower them with frozen dirt. The driver flinched violently. Bondarenko didn’t move.
“Leave the boxes,” the sergeant major said finally. “Get out before you die here.”
The truck departed in a spray of mud. Bondarenko stood looking at the boxes for a long moment, then began distributing ballots to his men.
“Fill them out,” he ordered. “Kozak, you’re in charge of collection. We’ll send them back with the next supply run.” He paused. “If there is one.”
Yevhen took his ballot with numb fingers. Three names stared up at him. He thought about his mother in Dnipro, his girlfriend who had fled to Germany, his friends who had died taking a hill whose name he had already forgotten.
He marked his choice at random and folded the paper twice.
“Democracy,” said the soldier next to him, a former teacher from Lviv named Andriy. “The Americans love their democracy.”
A burst of automatic fire echoed from the Russian positions. Yevhen tucked his ballot into the collection box and picked up his rifle, checking the magazine. Fourteen rounds.
It would have to be enough.
The polling station in Kyiv’s Podil district had been hit twice that morning.
Election workers swept glass from the floor while voters huddled in the basement, waiting for the all-clear. The ballot boxes, reinforced with steel plating after the first strike, remained intact. A small miracle.
Overhead, the thunder of anti-aircraft systems competed with the wail of sirens. The election observers from Germany and France pressed themselves against the walls, their official vests looking absurd in the chaos.
“This is madness,” one of them muttered.
“This is democracy,” replied the poll worker, already calling the next voter forward.
The results came in over three weeks, tabulated from refugee camps and front lines, from bombed-out cities and frozen embassy queues. The observers gathered in a conference room in Brussels to deliver their verdict. Cameras rolled. The world watched.
“After thorough review,” the lead observer announced, “we can confirm that the Ukrainian presidential election was conducted in accordance with international standards.” She paused, glancing at her notes. “It was free. It was fair.”
She removed her glasses and rubbed her eyes.
“And it was,” she concluded, “incredibly stupid.”
