President Zelensky, in an interview with Ukrainian national television station 1+1, offers a three-fold message that touches on key considerations as the war passes the 18-month mark. Some of the remarks made Mr. Zelensky sound more like the peacetime president he was before the Russian invasion in February 2022 and less like the wartime leader he’s been forced to become. 

Yet they reflected acknowledgement of mounting disquiet in some Allied quarters with the protracted nature of the conflict despite Ukraine’s progress on the southern frontlines. 

No symbolic sartorial changes are afoot — Mr Zelensky will not be trading his signature military-style khaki garb for a suit and tie anytime soon, as the war is on. The army’s general staff reported that on Monday alone, 32 combat engagements took place in the direction of Melitopol, with missile and artillery units scoring direct hits on Russian command posts and an air defense system.

It is ongoing combat operations like those that have kept Ukraine in a state of martial law since the Russian invasion, but now Mr. Zelensky says Ukraine could suspend it in order to hold parliamentary and presidential elections by 2024. 

Elections have at least until now been postponed in the name of national unity. The martial law now in effect  must be extended every 90 days and is next due to expire on November 15, which falls after the normal date in October for parliamentary elections but before presidential elections that would normally be held in March 2024.

Europeans have called for more transparent democratic processes in Ukraine in order for the country to become a more viable candidate for eventual  membership in the European Union, but there has also been pressure from Washington. On a visit to Kyiv last week, Senator Graham said that Ukraine should strive for holding elections even in wartime. “We need an election in Ukraine next year. I want to see this country have a free and fair election even while it is under assault,” Mr. Graham stated.

Mr. Zelensky appeared to be favorable despite the challenges, telling the senator that “if the United States and Europe give us financial support … I’m sorry, I will not hold elections on credit, I will not take money from weapons and give it to elections either. But … if the parliamentarians realize that we need to do this, then let’s quickly change the legislation and, most importantly, let’s take risks together.”

Mr. Graham, for whom Russia issued an arrest warrant in May, said previously in response to that bit of Kremlin hocus-pocus that “to know that my commitment to Ukraine has drawn the ire of Putin’s regime brings me immense joy.”

Mr. Zelensky, for his part, estimates it costs about $135 million to hold elections in peacetime, but, “I don’t know how much is needed in wartime.”

While Mr. Zelensky’s approval ratings are hovering close to 90 percent, it is possible that in his thinking the end of the war could bring to the fore criticisms of his government from March 2022, when he was accused of underestimating the Russian threat. He may also want to avoid the political fate of Winston Churchill, a wartime hero who nevertheless saw his political fortunes dim in the years following the Allied victory over Nazi Germany.

Mr. Zelensky also said in the televised interview Sunday that the Ukrainian military should not operate deep inside Russian territory because doing so, assuming it has the capability and manpower, would antagonize key allies.  

How that assessment meshes with drone attacks on locations in Russia, both north of the Ukrainian border and increasingly in Moscow itself, was not immediately clear. It is likely that this portion of Mr. Zelensky’s comments were attuned to an international audience.

More significantly, arguably, was Mr. Zelensky’s remarks to the effect that a negotiation on the future of the Crimean peninsula, occupied illegally by Russia since 2014, would be better than a military solution. 

By dropping hints of a demilitarized Crimea through a negotiated process, Mr. Zelensky is subtly addressing  reported differences of opinion in his government over the future course to take, amid a growing sense that at least some Western allies could press the matter of negotiation with Russia by the year’s end. If such a point should come, political exigencies could disrupt, though they would not necessarily override some of Ukraine’s more recent, public-facing military strategies.

How and where any such negotiation process could unfold, with or without a ceasefire, is not clear.

Regardless of whether Mr. Zelensky’s remarks are anticipatory, the counteroffensive in the southeast is despite a slow initial go achieving some partial successes. According to most European reports, though, the goal of liberating all the Russian-occupied territories including Crimea and the eastern provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk taken by Russia in 2014 remains elusive.

Where is President Putin in all of this? At Moscow, of course, but the ravenous Russ is still less isolated than some might think. On September 8, President Erdogan is scheduled to fly to Moscow for a meeting with Mr. Putin at the Kremlin. Turkey likes to portray itself as a potential mediator between Ukraine and Russia, but more so than in recent months it appears that the fulcrum of the next phase of the war is shifting back to where it really belongs: Kyiv.