Aug. 23 (UPI) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Saturday rejected calls for wartime elections, saying the move would “destroy the country.”

Under martial law, elections have been suspended since Russia invaded the country in 2022.

Last week, ousted Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov called on the president, whose five-year term ended in 2024, to allow Ukrainians to vote again.

Responding to Fedorov for the first time, Zelenkyy said such a move would split the country.

“I believe that if we want to destroy the country, then during such a war we can move in the selection of elections,” Zelenskyy told reporters on Saturday.

“I believe that during such a war, elections in general are big risks,” the president added. “Elections right now are a tsunami for the state that will split Ukraine.”

Zelenskyy said he would consider fresh elections under “specific conditions,” the Guardian reported.

Those conditions include the “participation of the military, in frontline territories, abroad, where millions of our citizens have gone, fleeing the war,” the president said.

Fedorov’s removal as defense minister in July sparked protests across Ukraine. On Tuesday, he said democracy was not a “peacetime luxury.”

“Democracy cannot be held hostage by Russia,” Fedorov said. “We are fighting precisely because we want to remain a free European state.

“Therefore, we must find a legal, safe, and realistic mechanism that will allow Ukraine to restore a full democratic process even amidst a prolonged war.”

Responding to Zelenskyy’s comments on Sunday, Fedorov told the BBC, “Democracy should not be the hostage of Putin.”

Zelenskyy last discussed open elections in December, after U.S. President Donald Trump accused him of using the war as an excuse to stay in power.

Back then, the Ukrainian president said he would hold elections so long as he could secure help from the United States and other allies to keep citizens safe when they go out to vote.