On Wednesday, the parliament in Kyiv appointed a new defence minister, hours after his predecessor - who was sacked in July - had called for elections to be held. Yevhenii Khmara, a former high-ranking member of the special forces, takes over Ukraine's crucial defence portfolio amid a new political crisis for the president, who had faced weeks of protests over the dismissal of the reformist Mykhailo Fedorov, aged 35.
After five years of sustained conflict, public opinion remains reluctant to destabilise the country's defence through new elections, but views the government's latest moves as worrying. Hours before Khmara's appointment as defence minister, the anti-corruption authorities announced charges against a deputy director in Zelensky's office as part of an alleged $3 million money-laundering scheme.
Elections during wartime are prohibited by law. A poll conducted on 5 August by the International Institute of Sociology in Kyiv (via Reuters) showed that 57 per cent of Ukrainians believe they should only be held after the war, given that hundreds of thousands of soldiers are on the front line and Russian missiles and drones continue to strike Ukrainian cities, towns and villages on a daily basis.