Europe
Zelenskyy extends martial law, casting doubt on fall parliamentary elections
By
The Washington Post August 17, 2023
David L. Stern and Francesca Ebel
The Washington Post August 17, 2023
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Thursday, Aug. 17, 2023, signed legislation extending martial law and a general military mobilization until mid-November. If martial law is not lifted, it would require postponing national parliamentary elections scheduled to take place this fall. (Valeria Mongelli/Bloomberg)
KYIV — As Russian forces continued to bombard regions across Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Thursday signed legislation extending martial law and a general military mobilization until mid-November. If martial law is not lifted, it would require postponing national parliamentary elections scheduled to take place this fall.
Under Ukrainian legislation, martial law must be prolonged every 90 days — a process put into motion on the first day of Russia's invasion in February 2022. While in effect, political activity is curtailed and elections cannot be held.
The constitution stipulates that parliamentary elections should take place no later than Oct. 29 and presidential elections early next year. However, in an interview with The Washington Post in May, Zelenskyy said, "If we have martial law, we cannot have elections. … If there is no martial law, then there will be [elections]."
While many countries manage to hold elections during wartime, Ukrainian officials say this is impossible, given that the country is fighting for its existence, with roughly 20 percent of it occupied by Russian forces and millions of people displaced. That democracy continues to function is an accomplishment in itself, they say.
Zelensky and his administration have said that Ukraine, which is officially designated as a candidate country to join the European Union, should become a member as soon as possible. E.U. officials say the process could take years.
Ukraine's military general staff said in a Facebook post Thursday that Russian forces in the previous 24 hours had launched eight missiles, 82 airstrikes and 76 multiple rocket launcher attacks the previous day against "Ukrainian troops and various settlements," across the Kharkiv, Luhansk, Donetsk, Dnipropetrovsk and Kherson regions.
The bombardment continued into Thursday morning, with local officials reporting shelling in the eastern Dnipropetrovsk region and near the city of Kupyansk, where heavy fighting is currently taking place.
On Thursday, the Joseph Schulte, a container ship carrying Ukrainian agriculture products despite Russian threats to obstruct its journey, continued sailing through the Black Sea, intending to deliver its cargo to international markets.
Last month, Russia suspended an agreement brokered by the United Nations that allowed Ukraine to safely export grain and other agricultural products — a key part of its economy — through the Black Sea. Moscow officials warned that ships traveling from Ukrainian ports would be viewed as potentially carrying military cargo, making them targets.
The Joseph Schulte, which is flying a Hong Kong flag, departed from the southern Ukrainian port of Odessa on Wednesday, Ukrainian officials said. A tracking map on the MarineTraffic website showed the vessel entering Turkish waters Thursday evening and said it would reach the Turkish port of Ambarli at around midnight, local time.
In a statement on its website Wednesday, Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement, which co-owns the vessel, said that all crew on board were "safe on board and well" and that the ship was using an "established corridor … via territorial waters of Ukraine, Romania, and [Turkey] to allow for a safe passage of southbound vessels."
Meanwhile, a Russian court on Thursday imposed a fine of 3 million rubles, roughly $32,000, on the U.S. technology company Google for allegedly failing to delete false information about the war in Ukraine, which Moscow calls a "special military operation."
The court found that YouTube, the video site owned by Google, had not removed videos containing what magistrates labeled as "fake" information about the conflict. Since the invasion, the Kremlin has introduced sweeping censorship laws, which has included outlawing any criticism of the military.
Thursday's action follows similar cases earlier this month against Apple and the Wikimedia Foundation, which hosts Wikipedia. A number of sites are currently under scrutiny by Moscow for failing to remove content that Russia deems illegal. Reddit, a social media site, was fined for the first time Tuesday.
Serhiy Morgunov in Stuttgart, Germany, contributed to this report.