The US President's team are said to have held calls with Ukraine's opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko as well as ex-president Petro Poroshenko.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy's political adversaries have put Donald Trump in an awkward position following a clandestine conversation with the former US President.

Reports suggest that members of Trump's circle engaged in discussions with Ukraine's opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko and former president Petro Poroshenko, deliberating the feasibility of conducting elections amidst the ongoing conflict.

Today, both opposition figures acknowledged having dialogues with Trump's administration.

However, they both rejected the idea of elections while Ukraine is still embroiled in hostilities with Russia, undermining Trump's team which has been vocal about urging Mr Zelenskyy to proceed with elections under martial law. On Facebook, Mr Poroshenko stated: "We work publicly and transparently with our American partners, aiming to maintain bipartisan support of Ukraine.

"The essence of our conversations with representatives of the American side has always come down to two principles - security first and peace through strength. Namely-weapons, intelligence, sanctions against Russia, financial support, democratic stability (freedom and democracy), transatlantic unity.

"Our team has always been and continues to be against elections during the war...We have said and continue to say that elections can only take place after a ceasefire and the signing of a peace agreement with security guarantees for Ukraine.", reports the Mirror.

Previously, Mr Trump labelled the Ukrainian president as "a dictator", while his senior advisor and the world's wealthiest man, Elon Musk, has repeatedly called for elections in Ukraine, asserting that he would "lose in a landslide". These remarks echo the narrative spun by the Kremlin, which has consistently tried to depict Ukraine as an undemocratic and Nazi state.

However, neither Mr Trump nor Mr Musk have commented on Russia's elections, which international observers have widely criticised as being manipulated in favour of the ruling party.

Since the imposition of martial law in February 2022 following Russia's full-scale invasion, elections in Ukraine have been put on hold. Mr Trump's special envoy to Ukraine and Russia expressed to Reuters on February 1 his desire for Mr Zelenskyy to conduct elections by year-end.

He argued that "most democratic nations have elections in their times of war. I think it is good for democracy. That's the beauty of a solid democracy, you have more than one person potentially running."

However, many countries, including the UK, have refrained from holding elections during wartime. For instance, during World War II, the UK did not conduct elections as it was engaged in a battle for its survival as a sovereign nation against Nazi Germany.