“Imitating an election process in Ukraine could threaten the country’s very statehood with catastrophe,” – a lawyer said

Ukraine’s authorities risk turning postwar elections into a tool for deepening the crisis if they do not solve the problem of accounting for millions of citizens.

In a new column, Honored Lawyer of Ukraine Volodymyr Bohatyr warns that without a real audit of voters and broad political consensus, the voting results may be recognized neither inside the country nor internationally.

The lawyer says the state has ended up in a “state of uncertainty.” The key problem, he argues, is the State Register of Voters, which no longer reflects reality because of mass migration and the war. Restoring the register’s operation through purely technical means does not address the fundamental issue of data reliability, which creates room for manipulation.

“No one knows for sure where a significant number of voters are today, and the question of whether they can access participation in the electoral process is extremely important,” Bohatyr notes.

He warns against attempts to push elections and electoral lustrations through ad hoc legislative decisions.

“Election rules must be the result of broad consensus, not a product of the political expediency of one force. Otherwise, rushed elections will become not an act of restoring democracy, but a catalyst for internal destabilization,” the author cautions.

Bohatyr emphasizes that any model that is not built on a constitutionally agreed foundation carries a “systemic risk of delegitimizing” the authorities.